Continuing the Locus Remix. Three Contemporary Positions series, Ismail Farouk, a Fellow in the MAK Urban Future Initiative, presented a survey of his activities and strategies for activating change, including video, photography and performance. Farouk’s focus on the urban spaces of Johannesburg, South Africa point the Western viewer to places, vocabulary and politics that might initially seem foreign but are in fact tied to Western power structures. Utilizing contemporary media and mining his own position, he produces artwork that questions the occupation of space and what that means in a post-apartheid era.
Cancelled Without Prejudice includes a selection of video installations that illustrate Farouk’s varied approach to circumventing the mechanisms of injustice, such as a series of surveillance videos documenting police corruption and abuse of undocumented migrants. In the video “Rock Sale,” Farouk challenges Johannesburg’s ban on street vendors by setting up his own sidewalk enterprise and attempting to sell rocks and piles of sand – items of no monetary value. Farouk’s video and photography bare witness to similar patterns of injustice in Los Angeles, particularly in Skid Row. Through video, photography and performance, Farouk documents patterns of spatial injustice and explores a variety of interventions aimed at producing a more just urban landscape. With Cancelled Without Prejudice, Farouk examines the contradictions of mainstream urban development in Johannesburg and Los Angeles, revealing a common narrative unfolding in both cities: the privatization of public space and the criminalization of poverty
Curated by Kimberli Meyer.
6.11.2008—4.1.2009
