Four Artists from Oman and the Fluxus Event Scores

Four Artists from Oman and the Fluxus Event Scores
By Miguel Bermudez

Art based on Fluxus event scores were the basis of creations by four young and talented photographers from Oman with the direct involvement of Elina Brotherus. American Fluxus artist George Brecht invented this concept in the early 1960s to describe what would happen to their works (events).
Fluxus artists wrote a short instruction sheet or protocol, a score, and other written instruction for performance-oriented art from the 1950s-70s (VALIE EXPORT, Henning Christiansen, Rémy Zaugg, and Yoko Ono).
Resonance is the title of the series of new commissions by The Wapping Project, London.
The Wapping Project defines itself as “a platform for the continuous development of ideas, thoughts, and people.
It is our investment in, and enthusiasm for, the artists that we commission that forms the backbone of the artistic program. The Wapping Project questions and aims to redefine accepted boundaries through commissioning, nurturing, and championing artistic talent. We exist to enable artists to work with unrestrained ambition”.

The Wapping Project, together with the collaboration with Stal Gallery, Muscat, and supported by the British Council, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport of the UK, and GREAT through the UK-Gulf exhibition program.

The four artists that were involved in the commission were:

RAWAN ALMAHROUQI graduated from Sultan Qaboos University Muscat. Rawan’s multidisciplinary practice focuses on the Arabian Gulf’s female experience, the double standards, the thin line between tradition and religion. She draws most of her inspiration from her Khaleeji (Arabian Gulf) culture and her experiences growing up and living in the region. She won the Young Emerging Artist Prize (YEAP) run by Stal Gallery, Muscat, Oman, in 2015. Her work was featured in the Arte documentary Women in Islam. In 2018, Rawan, together with her sisters, founded Makan Studios art school, the first of its kind, offering art classes to adults and children in Muscat.

SAFA BALUCHI graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Spatial Design from the University of Nizwa. She works across performance, video, photography, and installation. Her work, which draws on her personal experience, explores questions around the relationship between the individual and the society.
Depression, entrapment, and erosion are recurring themes in her work. She won the Young Emerging Artist Prize (YEAP) run by Stal Gallery, Muscat, Oman, in 2015 and participated in several exhibitions at the gallery. In 2018, she curated the Disfiguration exhibition at Stal Gallery.

RUQAIYA MAZAR graduated from the University of Nizwa in central Oman. Ruqaiya works across drawing, photography, video, and digital arts. In her practice, she draws on her experience as an artist living and working within the Arab culture. Her work asks questions about the search for balance in human existence, struggle between light and darkness, shadows lurking in the depths of oneself, dreams, and failure. Her work was shown in Oman and Saudi Arabia.
She was shortlisted for the Young Emerging Artist Prize (YEAP) run by Stal Gallery, Muscat, Oman, in 2015 and participated in several exhibitions at the gallery.

RIHAM NOOR AL ZADJALI graduated with a BA in Fine Arts from Paris American Academy. In her work, Riham poses questions about the most current global events, including conflicts, military interventions, displacement, and migration. Her work has been shown widely in Oman. She was shortlisted for the Young Emerging Artist Prize (YEAP) run by Stal Gallery, Muscat, Oman, in 2015. She co-founded the initiative Art with Refugee, a traveling exhibition of artworks by refugees and artists worldwide to support better living conditions for refugees, mostly in Greece.
The collection was shown in Piraeus, Greece, Children’s Museum of Wilmington, North Carolina, USA, the Human (Art)istic Festival in Brussels, Belgium, as well as in Spain and Oman.

They collaborated and worked under the guidance of:

ELINA BROTHERUS works in photography and moving image.
Her work has been alternating between autobiographical and art-historical approaches. Photographs dealing with the human figure and the landscape, the relation of the artist and the model, gave way to images on subjective experiences in her recent bodies of work, Annunciation and Carpe Fucking Diem. In her current work, she revisits Fluxus event scores and other written instructions for performance-oriented art of the 1950s-70s.
Another ongoing interest is photographing in iconic houses by architects like Alvar Aalto, Hundertwasser, and Michel Polak. Brotherus takes roles of various imagined characters, thus bringing a tranquil human presence to the spaces.
One that shows the human toll of never-ending catastrophic wars, societal oppressions based on constructing inherited “cultural” beliefs, and a loud call for change for the role, place, and contributions of women at all levels.

Elina has exhibited widely since 1997, and her work is presented in major public collections, including at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, MAXXI, Rome, Fundacion ARCO, Madrid, Hasselblad Center, Gothenburg, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, and Museum Folkwang, Essen, to name a few. Through these directives, their work mirrors their beliefs for a better, more accepting, inclusive, respectful, and peaceful society.

Read the full article on Art Market Magazine Issue #51