Events

ONE WORK | Online Discussion with Sulaïman Majali

Part of ONE WORK

24 February 2022
6–7.30pm

Online

Free, booking via Eventbrite

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A video still depicts a puddle in the rain. The water is a dark grey, speckled with reflections of light and concentric circles of raindrops hitting the surface. The ground surrounding it is a pattern of road surfaces, bricks and concrete and tarmac. Tuffs of greenery edge around the puddle, and an orange ball, or perhaps an orange fruit, sits on an island of wet grass in the puddle.
Sulaïman Majali, Screen Shot 2021-12-14 at 15.45.46, courtesy of the artist

For February in the ONE WORK online event series, Sulaïman Majali will discuss thinking around their work, false dawn’. Developed for an exhibition as part of Glasgow International in 2021, false dawn is iterated here as 20210704_video.mp4, as both unedited video documentation and as a thing” itself, exploring entanglements, oranges, magic, poetry, empire and rupture.

We recommend watching 20210704_video.mp4 in advance of the discussion, available to view on the LUX Scotland website for the month of February 2022.

false dawn was an exhibition developed for Glasgow International 2021. Taking its title from a zodiacal light visible on the horizon before sunrise, the exhibition considered the site on the former location of the 1938 Empire exhibition in Glasgows’ Bellahouston Park, as one of rupture; a garden where 1 might encounter _​_​_​_​_​_​. Working at the fold, at a time when _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​, _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​and _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​, false dawn brought to the surface wider and persistent questions around what the artists might *mean* by performance-led research, _​_​_​_​_​_​as a haunting of publics, unfurling refusals; _​_​_​_​_​of the singular self; defines and confines _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​; separations between the digital and the neural; _​_​_​_​_​_​, wandering fool

Through an insisting on art, in its thinkability and speakability, as revelatory praxis, as an embodied transcendence of matter”, they position the artist as fugitive clown, a scheherazade in the court of pharaoh, as disruptive dreaming slipping under enduring imperial imaginaries. In the stirs of divine poetics, the sacred valley is the fold at the uniting of the ontological and the epistemological – the stick is a snake is a gun is a device.

From whatever there might be of a radical disbelief in the object ~4 there is no such thing~ they record themselves wandering around the space, as both an address to and a haunting by some impossible audience. For this event, the artists bring with them the remnants, debris and collateral of what reveals itself as impossible film, divergent splintering of the contradictory and simultaneous/​bewildered worlds of becoming/​forever arriving, perpetual guest!/ in an assembly of impossibilities.

Captions by Collective Text 2022 in conversation with the artist, Caption consultation by Ciaran Stewart


How it works

Our online events will take place on Zoom. The event will be live transcribed using otter​.ai live transcription. We will also use the chat space to post questions /​comments being raised by the guest artist so they can be referred back to.

We ask that all participants are respectful and listen to the facilitators and other participants. An attendee list will be circulated to all participants in advance of each event. At the beginning of events we will introduce the guest artist and invite participants to briefly introduce themselves and their reason for joining.

During the event discussion, we ask that one person speaks at a time and that you type hi’ in the chat to indicate you want to contribute. A member of the LUX Scotland team will keep a track of who wishes to contribute and will direct the conversation to you. You may also wish to use the chat space to type your question or comment, should this be preferable for you. We ask that you keep your microphones on mute until you are going to speak to ensure everyone can hear clearly. We invite you to have your cameras on, where possible, as this maintains a feeling of being together in the space.

If you require support to participate in our online events, or have any questions, please let us know by contacting us on email hidden; JavaScript is required and we will be happy to assist.

LUX Scotland is dedicated to providing a welcoming online environment for everyone, regardless of gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, or religion or belief. Participants who do not adhere to this code of conduct and the participation guidelines will be asked to leave the event.

About the artist

Sulaïman Majali (b. 1991/​1771/​1412/​2941/​1492) is an artist poet who brings into play rupturing, grieving and dreaming as methodologies of collapse. Considering art as an already thinking and speaking thing, the artists agitate/​incite/​perform towards poetic and conceptual strategies. At issue in the play is the liberatory or otherwise. Exhibitions and events include; false dawn, a solo exhibition at Studio Pavillion for Glasgow International Biennial 2021. IMG_​5917, produced with Camara Taylor, commissioned by Artists’ Moving Image Festival, GIVE BIRTH TO ME TOMORROW: PART 6, LUX Scotland, online (2021). assembly of the dispersed, part of The Internet of Things, Darat al-Funun, Amman, Jordan/​online (2020). strange winds, a sound commission for The Common Guild’s In The Open (2020). a dream for scheherazade, EVERYTHING HAPPENED SO MUCH, 66th International Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany (2020). WHAT’S AHEAD, WHAT’S KNOWN, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland (2020). saracen go home, a solo exhibition at Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland (2019). something vague and irrational, Celine Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland (2019). assembly of the poets, a reading as part of EARTH HOLD, Qalandiya International Biennial, Serpentine Galleries, London, England (2018). Mene Mene Tekel Parsin, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge, England (2017). Towards an archive, 8th Cairo Video Festival, Egypt (2017).


Closed Captions 20210704_video.mp4 captioned by Collective Text.

Closed Captions The discussion event is live captioned by 121 Captions.

Part of ONE WORK

ONE WORK is a series of online events that focus closely on a single work. These generous discussions provide an opportunity for an artist to present a recent work and talk through how the work came into being. Each work is available as a month-long online screening, followed by a specially commissioned written response that serves as documentation of both the work and the discussion.

Learn more