![\"Fatima](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Fatima3.jpg\")
Fatima Al Qadiri<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Fatima Al Qadiri<\/p>\n
Fatima Al Qadiri is a Kuwaiti musician\u00a0and artist, and one of the nine\u00a0members of GCC, an artist collective that takes its name and inspiration\u00a0from the Gulf Cooperation Council.\u00a02016 saw the release of her second\u00a0album, \u201cBrute\u201d, on Hyperdub records.\u00a0A mixture of off-kilter beats,\u00a0gunshots, explosions, news samples,\u00a0moody chord progressions and icy\u00a0strings, it was created in Kuwait while\u00a0Al Qadiri recovered from a knee-injury,\u00a0watching the post-Ferguson protests\u00a0unfold, transforming their dissent into\u00a0her record\u2019s message. Sleek caught up\u00a0with the multi-talented artist at the\u00a0European School of Management and\u00a0Technology in Berlin, one of the locations\u00a0for the 9th Berlin Biennale.
\n <\/p>\n
![\"Fatima](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Fatima-780x600.jpg\")
Fatima Al Qadiri<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From sons playing their mothers to politics as performance and dance music about dissent<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37584,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,139],"tags":[4606,1023,1024,5817,5818,5819,514,5820,5821,5822,5823,5824],"class_list":["post-37575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-art","tag-berlin-biennale","tag-fatima-al-qadiri","tag-gcc","tag-gulf-region","tag-hyperdub","tag-inaugural-summit","tag-jeni-fulton","tag-khalid-al-gharaballi","tag-kuwaiti","tag-morschach","tag-peter-rigaud","tag-positive-pathways"],"acf":{"main_category":null,"legacy":"1","exclude_from_ads":null,"hero_title":null,"subtitle":null,"hero":null,"teasers":null,"facebook_image":null,"related_articles":null,"next_article":null,"sleek_card_focus":null,"content":null},"yoast_head":"\n
\nWhich came first for you, art or\u00a0music?<\/em><\/strong><\/strong> \nMy mother, Thuraya\u00a0Al-Baqsami, is an artist, and my role\u00a0model. She worked at the Ministry of\u00a0Communication in Kuwait and would\u00a0bring in stacks of old communiqu\u00e9s,\u00a0and we\u2019d draw on the back of them.\u00a0So my first exposure was to visual art.\u00a0During the occupation of Kuwait,\u00a0when I was nine, my sister Monira and\u00a0I wrote our first song. That\u2019s when I\u00a0started making music. So I guess art\u00a0came first, but I feel like my forte is\u00a0music!
\nHow was GCC founded? What was the\u00a0first work you made collectively?<\/strong><\/em>
\nKhalid al Gharaballi and I have been\u00a0collaborating since 2006, and in 2012,\u00a0we won a grant from the Arab Fund for\u00a0Arts and Culture for the piece \u201cMendeel\u00a0Um A7mad (NxIxSxM)\u201d. The project\u00a0was a large-scale installation of a\u00a0Kleenex box, which contained a film\u00a0about the Kuwaiti ritual of Chai Dhaha,\u00a0a meeting of women for pre-noon\u00a0tea. But, in a twist, these are young\u00a0men in drag performing their mothers,\u00a0and the film is narrated from the point\u00a0of view of a tissue box. It\u2019s now against\u00a0the law to \u201cimitate\u201d the appearance of\u00a0the opposite sex in Kuwait, but that\u00a0wasn\u2019t always the case. The protagonists\u00a0are seated in a ballroom with the\u00a0box in the middle, and a maid pushing\u00a0a trolley of tea and biscuits, while the\u00a0women gossip and discuss their lives.\u00a0Every now and then, a woman gets up\u00a0and takes a tissue. We hired almost\u00a0all current GCC members to work on\u00a0the piece, and it\u2019s the most successful\u00a0work that we had done at that point,\u00a0too. After that we realised how well we\u00a0function as a unit, and decided to become\u00a0a collective.
\n <\/p>\n![\"Fatima](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Fatima2-2-900x600.jpg\")
“Positive Pathways (+)” by GCC (2016), installation view<\/p>\n
\nIs GCC\u2019s output a critique of contemporary\u00a0Gulf culture and politics, or are you\u00a0participating in it as well commenting\u00a0on it?<\/strong><\/em>
\nImagine that question being asked of\u00a0you. How are you engaging or contributing\u00a0to German culture or Western\u00a0culture? It\u2019s so broad.
\nFor us, the Gulf region is a closed society.\u00a0It\u2019s not really a region that embraces\u00a0outsiders, with the exception of Dubai,\u00a0which is the Gulf version of Vegas. But,\u00a0while in the Gulf there\u2019s a culture of hospitality,\u00a0you\u2019re not going to access the society\u2019s\u00a0rituals because they are closed to\u00a0outsiders, and that\u2019s the one part of the\u00a0Gulf that we\u2019re really interested in. Without\u00a0getting into the \u2018native informant\u2019\u00a0scenario or into the simplistic polarities\u00a0of East vs. West, we\u2019re trying to understand\u00a0these processes as much as anyone\u00a0else is. There\u2019s a huge gap between the\u00a0rich and the poor, between the expat labourers\u00a0and which jobs they have access\u00a0to. Being a woman I wanted to get out\u00a0of there as soon as I could. Strangely, the\u00a0governments of the Gulf region always\u00a0seem to be ten steps ahead. Positive Pathways\u00a0(+), for instance, is about co-opting\u00a0self-help and self-optimisation as a path\u00a0to economic prosperity. And a month before\u00a0the opening of the Berlin Biennale,\u00a0the Dubai government opened a Ministry\u00a0of Happiness!
\n <\/p>\n![\"Fatima](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Fatima_GCC.jpg\")
“Brute” (2016) album cover<\/p>\n
\nWhat about Positive Pathways (+), is it\u00a0a comment or a cultural artefact?<\/strong><\/em>
\nIt\u2019s not intended as an artefact. Many\u00a0of our works are about how the government\u00a0positions itself, and how politics\u00a0is like a drag act. I loved the theme of\u00a0the Biennale, \u201cThe Present in Drag\u201d.\u00a0There\u2019s so much drag in our work.
\nEspecially in works such as your 2013\u00a0work, \u201cInaugural Summit, Morschach\u201d.<\/strong><\/em>
\nThat piece is about governance as a type\u00a0of performance. It\u2019s about diplomats\u00a0performing their \u2018work\u2019 of handshakes,\u00a0drinking champagne and eating caviar.\u00a0We were looking at the performativity\u00a0of diplomatic and bureaucratic summits;\u00a0here the photo op is the work. And we feel\u00a0that what we represent is so universal, so\u00a0relatable, because so many governments\u00a0and politicians operate this way. They wear\u00a0a different outfit, a different costume, or\u00a0eat something different. But, fundamentally,\u00a0they\u2019re all performing the same act.
\n <\/p>\n![\"Fatima](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Fatima_GCC_2.jpg\")
“Mendeel Um A7mad (NxIxSxM)” by Fatima Al Qadiri and Khalid al Gharaballi (2012), installation view<\/p>\n
\nYou made a track, Nothing Forever for\u00a0\u201cAnthem\u201d, the soundtrack for the Berlin\u00a0Biennale, with Hito Steyerl and Juliana\u00a0Huxtable. How did that happen?<\/strong><\/em>
\nThey [the biennial curators] approached\u00a0me and said, \u2018We\u2019re making an\u00a0album, we would love for you to collaborate\u00a0with Hito.\u2019 She\u2019d already used\u00a0my music for one of her installations\u00a0at the 2015 Venice Bienniale. I\u2019d never\u00a0met her in person, but when we started\u00a0talking it was obvious that we were\u00a0both obsessed with the subject of the\u00a0apocalypse. I wanted to write a national\u00a0anthem for the end of the world. The\u00a0one thing that connects all these types\u00a0of anthems is this idea that we fight and\u00a0sacrifice ourselves for the greater glory\u00a0of the nation. But what is the function\u00a0of glory when there\u2019s nothing to glorify?\u00a0When all your plants are dead, and humanity\u00a0is dead, and the world is extinct,\u00a0what is its purpose?
\n <\/p>\n![\"Fatima](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Fatima_GCC_3.jpg\")
“Mendeel Um A7mad (NxIxSxM)” by Fatima Al Qadiri and Khalid al Gharaballi (2012), film still<\/p>\n