Holly Freeman

Ben Judd - GROUP 1

Rana Hamadeh, The Fugitive Image - Alien Encounters

New Contemporary, Nottingham

10th October 2015 - 31st December 2015

Hamadeh is just one of four solo

artists within the commissioned
exhibition
'Alien
Encounters',
displayed in Nottingham, at the
New Contemporary. The exhibition
consisted
of
performance,
instillation and theatre with a clear
individual style in each room of the
Contemporary's different spaces
(Nottingham Contemporary, 2015).
Hamadeh's style had particularly
been highlighted to me as her work
is similar to the style I aim to
achieve! Within her space a variety
of
graphical
instillations,
performance and even a textile
piece collaborated to create a bold,
graphical and architectural project. Entering Hamadeh's space I was drawn to the
large centre piece consisting of projection, print, collage and glass windows that
followed on to expand the different perspectives of the work, something that I
felt was the most successful element from her entire project. The work had
become interactive as I tried to map together the glass windows with the centre
piece, adding a sense of fun as your almost creating your own art. However, in
relation to the theme of 'Alien Encounters' I felt Hamadeh had related more to
her own topic of 'The Fugitive Image', due to the fact the video was the only
element that seemed to link with the exhibition 'Alien Encounters'.

At first glance I felt Hamadeh had split her space into three main attractions sculpture, instillation and performance which all carried a very different and
individual abstract style, possibly a connection to the theme of the overall
exhibition 'Alien Encounters'. Through exploration I struggled to join the glass
windows with the centre piece but could this have been intentional? as this
allows the audience to interpret her work from their own perspective. Having
displayed such different types of work in the exhibition I battled with trying to
understand what the whole project was about. Although, from first impressions I
came to the conclusion that she was trying to show the difference in the old and
new, therefore building this image of what the future could look like with art. I

Holly Freeman

Ben Judd - GROUP 1

had come to this conclusion because, Hamadeh had a large variety of old
contexts and images probably from various wars, intertwined with contemporary
art and shapes to show the effects of the past on how the future will look.

In spite of not being able to

entirely understand the project I
felt hugely drawn to the centre
piece as it had been created with
bold colours, projection, layers,
strong lines and shapes - a pop
art like style. All together these
elements worked well to create a
collage like instillation that I feel
could be inspiration for my
solution to working on a larger
scale with collage. The glass
windows that follow on from the
centre piece reminded me of my
childhood, watching art attack
when Neil Buchanan would
produce large scale images using
different layers of materials like
salt,
fabric
and
food
(DisneyJuniourUK, 2015). Even though his artwork was aimed at a younger
audience the idea itself is great to create large scale contemporary collage. Also
within this element of the Hamadeh's work, projection was used to complete the
layers of the centre piece which is an aspect I would love to use within my own
collage as I have never used this modern media to explore within my own
practice in presenting my work.

Researching further into 'The Fugitive Image' I discovered that this work was a
development from Hamadeh's work displayed at The Primary in Nottingham, but
I unfortunately didn't particularly enjoy looking at her previous work as I felt it
lacked artistic effort, as it simply looked like a collection of old scripts and images
(Programme, 2015). When trying to source information on Hamadeh I did feel
slightly limited as most of the information on the artist was based online, as she
is currently trying to establish herself as an artist. Although, from what I could
find I discovered that Hamadeh was actually trying to exhibit the justice given to
the famous Egyptian serial killers Raya and Sakina within the Arab world, which
came to a massive surprise (The Showroom, 2015). Therefore, making me
question how I interpret art? Or if I should have spent more time looking at the
exhibition?

Holly Freeman

Ben Judd - GROUP 1

Whilst looking around Hamadah's exhibition I was also fascinated by people's

reactions to her work. Someone sat facing against the art as if they was just
trying to focus on the sounds in the environment and then whilst I was watching
the videos I had two males one after the other trying to re-act the performance.
Their reactions added to the contemporary and unusual atmosphere, making me
question how I could further explore future exhibitions rather than just walking
around in a mathematical way? One possibility would be to gather a group of
completely different people to one another - small, large, international, disabled,
children ect... to see how they would react to the exhibition and then record the
answers to try and find a better understanding of the work.

Even though I first felt Hamadeh didn't particularly relate well to the main theme
of 'Alien Encounters', after researching the definition of 'Alien' I entirely disagree
with my opinion. Alien can be correlated to being: 'strange', 'creatures from
another planet', 'different country, group or race' and 'someone who isn't a legal
citizen' (Dictionary.com, 2015). Therefore, in association with 'The Fugitive
Image' the entire true meaning of the exhibition is 'Alien' as the behaviour of the
serial killing sisters was 'strange' and of course against the law making them
'untitled to being a legal citizen'! Resulting in feeling that I could refer to the
sisters as 'creatures' as no normal human being would commit such an act! So
altogether, I feel Hamadeh had successfully created the atmosphere of 'Alien
Encounters' as the whole context of her project 'encounters' an 'alien' experience
even though it isn't obvious adding to the curiosity to her practice!
Further images of Rana Hamadeh's exhibition:

Further images of the overall exhibition 'Alien Encounters':

Holly Freeman

Ben Judd - GROUP 1

Holly Freeman

Ben Judd - GROUP 1

References
Holly Freeman, All images. Nottingham Contemporary, iPhone 6 camera, 2015.
DisneyJuniorUK, 2015. Art Attack - Giant Tiger Make! - Official Disney Junior UK HD.
YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x19z2xazKoc
Programme, 2015. Rana Hamadeh - 'The Fugitive Image'. Primary. Available at:
http://www.weareprimary.org/2015/05/rana-hamadeh/
Nottingham Contemporary, 2015. Autumn Season: Alien Encounters. Nottingham
Contemporary. Available at: http://www.nottinghamcontemporary.org/art/alien-encounters
The Show Room, 2015. Rana Hamadeh: The Fugitive Image. The Show Room. Available
at: http://www.theshowroom.org/projects/rana-hamadeh-the-fugitive-image
Dictionary.com, 2015. Alien. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com. Available at:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/alien