This timely publication brings together a multiplicity of voices and formats to think through some of the most pressing debates around material heritage and museums today. What does it mean to build museums without collections, away from nation-states? What might the testimony of objects and artefacts tell us? How will the dispersal of power and artefacts from western encyclopaedic museums generate new forms of relationships and entangled histories?
The book includes contributions from: Ariella Aisha Azoulay, Pio Abad, Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Rand Abdul Jabbar, Nora Al-Badri, Anahi Alviso-Marino, Noah Angell, Haytham El Wardany, Faustin Linyekula, Omar Berrada, Jumana Manna, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Marian Pastor Roces, Gala Porras-Kim, Michael Rakowitz, Uzma Z Rizvi, Alya Sebti, Dima Srouji and Akram Zaatari.
Monumental Shadows is the culmination of Art Jameel’s multi-year project exploring the many facets of material heritage—from the destruction of monuments and contested ownership, to the use of scanning technologies in preservation and reconstruction—working with artists whose practices are rooted in regional histories. The edited volume expands on Jameel Arts Centre’s 2019–21 exhibition programme examining the politics of material heritage, including the group exhibition Phantom Limb in 2019, and solo exhibitions by Michael Rakowitz and Hiwa K in 2020 and 2021.
Pio Abad, Marian Pastor Roces, Haytham El Wardany, Rand Abdul Jabbar and Michael Rawkowitz query the relationship between heritage and inheritance in a contested present; Jumana Manna, Dima Srouji, Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme engage with the land in Palestine to create new vocabularies and imaginaries of hope and resistance; Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Alya Sebti and Nora Al-Badri probe the institutional archive and look at ways of destabilising this while Anahi Alviso-Marino, Uzma Rizvi, Akram Zaatari, Gala Porras-Kim and Noah Angel speak to the artefacts and objects confined in displays and storage areas to elucidate an alternative to given notions of objecthood.
The publication is available worldwide through several distribution channels covering bookstores, university libraries, online retailers and book fairs, and at the Art Jameel Shop, both online (worldwide) and in-store in Dubai and Jeddah. For the full list of distributors, click here.
Art Jameel Publishing is part of the organisation’s mandate to increase access to under-documented cultural histories and artistic practices. Publications include artist books, monographs, photography books, exhibition catalogues and much more.
