Ala Younis: Plan for Feminist Greater Baghdad

Ala Younis: Plan for Feminist Greater Baghdad
01.02.2018 - 24.03.2018

Delfina Foundation and Art Jameel collaborate to present Plan for Feminist Greater Baghdad, a solo exhibition by Ala Younis. The exhibition includes a major new installation co-commissioned by the two organisations, Plan (fem.) for Greater Baghdad (2018), that builds on Younis’s 2015 work, Plan for Greater Baghdad, which was included in the Central Exhibition of the 56th Venice Biennale curated by Okwui Enwezor.

In the original work, Plan for Greater Baghdad (2015), Younis looked at monuments, (by) architects, (for) governments, and the short state of empowerment they gained as politics shifted in Iraq. The project anchored itself within the history of a gymnasium in Baghdad that was designed by Le Corbusier and named after Saddam Hussein.

In the newly commissioned work, Plan (fem.) for Greater Baghdad (2018), Younis sees beyond the male dominance of the city’s architecture and politics, tracing the contributions made by female artists, architects and other figures on the development of Baghdad and its modern monuments. Among the female protagonists that inspire this project are Nuha al-Radi, Fahrelnissa Zeid, and Zaha Hadid. Through found materials, archival documents and oral histories, their stories are presented through a timeline punctuated with inkjet prints and drawings alongside digitally sculptured and 3D printed models, which mirror the 2015 male edition of the work.

Plan for Feminist Greater Baghdad will also be exhibited at Project Space Art Jameel in Dubai, from March 1 to April 14, 2018.