CuratorSpace Artist Bursary #23: Gil Mualem-Doron

Gil Mualem-Doron I am a multi-disciplinary artist, with 15 years of experience of socially engaged art / social practices projects. My work is informed by my Ph.D. thesis, activism and personal experience as a mix race person and migrant. Much of my work concentrates on themes of place and belonging, identify and social justice using photography, digital art and installations.

Requiem [working title]

I was invited to create a new work for an exhibition at P21 Gallery, London in which I had a solo exhibition in 2020.
The work will be a sound installation concerning the ongoing war in Israel/Palestine.
The exhibition will last two weeks and will include public events with Jewish and Palestinian UK organisations and artists around the theme of censorship in the art world.

Since the Hamas attack on October 7th and the devastating war Israel launched against Gaza artists created immediate responses - many of which could not compete with the horrific images which flooded the news and often in support of one or the other side of the conflict - replicating the eco-chamber of social media.
After a series of conversations with a few curators who took an interest in my work in the past, especially the solo exhibition I had in P21 in 2020, I came out with a concept for a room and sound installation that will transform the gallery into a place of encounter, reflection and conversations. The work conflates my first childhood memory - running to the bomb shelter in Israel, represented by sounds that include an anti-war lullaby sung by my mum, with recordings of children in Gaza sourced from various media outlets. This sound installation will be presented in the darkness of the gallery's basement floor. On the first floor, there will be an audio installation that includes a conversation between me and a Palestinian curator with whom I was working in the past.

The project will reflect the collective trauma Palestinians and Israelis have been facing and at the same time will attempt to create a sight for a common mourning and dialogue.
The gallery space at the heart of London, usually priced £3000 per week, will be given for free. Due to the delicate subject and the exhibition planned for early June, I don't expect to receive any other funds.
Conversation with several artists for participation in a panel discussing censorship in the arts already started by the exhibition curator and me.
The work on the sound installation will take place in April and the exhibition will take place in early June.
The bursary will go towards artists' fees and four MP3 boom-box / media players for the installation.

The last exhibition I had in London, concerning Palestinian issues was in 2020 and while I continue working on the subject I couldn't find other places or funds for my new work. This is a rare opportunity to exhibit work on a subject that is close to my heart and on which I have been working for the past 15 years.
Media-wise - while I had sound elements in previous exhibitions this work will be almost entirely sound-based - a medium that I would like to continue to explore as part of my practice.

As mentioned before, it is very difficult to find places and funds for work that concern Palestinian issues, and as an [ex] Israeli and Jewish such opportunities are even more rare - not to mention other personal and social barriers I face when creating and exhibiting such work.
While the bursary is fairly small - considering the scale of the proposed work - it is highly important for me to show that there are funders who are willing to fund projects that are not shy of tackling difficult subjects and in particular the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I have created several complex installations in the past few years including at P21 Gallery.
The latest solo exhibition I had at Worthing Museum, an exhibition that was chosen as a must-see by the A-N, included a large-scale multimedia immersive installation.
While there are relatively many opportunities to exhibit 2D work on-site and online, as members of Curator Space can testify, there are much less opportunities to show large scale installation work and the bursary will support such opportunity.

You can find out more about Gil's work here.

 

More news