Collaborative Praxis and Contemporary Art Experiments in the Menasa Region

This book examines the ways in which artists and arts organizations today forge collaborative, socially engaged situations that involve non-professionals in the process of making art, often over a period of time, through creating opportunities to examine collective concerns and needs. Collaborative art praxis is gaining prominence in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia (MENASA) region. This is a discursive method that is experimental, with results that often expand the notions of what art is­―and how it can be produced. After an introduction to global approaches to such a practice, Ali examines the foundation of contemporary art in the MENASA that is linked to a longer history of colonialism. The book analyzes artist-led initiatives and community-based organizations through themes including relational aesthetics, war and violence, blight in marginalized places around the world, in addition to questions associated with art and its value in the fields of global contemporaryart and society.

Atteqa Ali is an art historian, writer, and curator based in Dubai and New York. She has written for several publications, including an essay on collaborative and socially engaged art in the extended Middle East for Third Text. She is Assistant Dean of Student Affairs at Zayed University, United Arab Emirates.