Ola Hassanain

“Back and Forth: gender BETWEEN khartoum”

  The artist starts from a point of urgent need to produce gender knowledge that is "situation" specific.  Situations, present the potential ground for generating knowledge that can be responsive to particularities of culture, politics and race. The project aims to challenge institutional modernity, in which gender feminist theorists insinuate a representation and understanding of all women. A "situation" in the context of Khartoum, is a captured moment showing the dynamic between gender and a physical space in response to the regulations imposed on women in Khartoum.

 The artist seeks a channel in the concept of “gendered space” that represents her as an artist.  She however does not speak for Sudanese women but rather aligns herself with the "Sudanese woman" experience. The production of the artwork explores how gender unravels limits of institutional “regulations" practiced through politics, race and culture in a particular cultural setting in Khartoum. The artist shows these limits through the documentation of collection of interviews, discussions and  “political corners” (a political discussion corner is a talk, discussion or debate  held on campus of  University of Khartoum) to create a contested space, where dialogue between women living in Khartoum today; expresses moments of self-conflict , self-awareness, and most importantly the politics by which they use physical space. The work takes the accounts of these women   as a point of creative production that makes a comment on institutional politics that regulates womenÂ’s use of space in Khartoum.

 The visual findings suggest that womenÂ’s mere existence in a space does not constitute Â“gendered space”. The idea is that the Sudanese woman triggers a new dynamic to the use of a space. By doing that, she re-configures the politics of that space; she becomes the agent for contested spaceÂ… She is the producer of her own regulations but she also envisions physical elements in that space thus, sees the potential of how a space can liberate her that otherwise would have restricted her.

The Artist arranges and edits the videos through a criteria of highlighting moments in the videos where references to time and physical space are made. In an attempt to materialize a display of dialogue between reconfiguration of the political stage that places the Sudanese woman a point of subjugation, the work introduces a new formation of dialogue that captures how racial, political and cultural connotations is reconfigured by women to reclaim “gendered place”.