Monuments & Flowers brings together a selection of seminal video work culled from the archives of ArteEast with the work of contemporary voices.
Curated by Regine Basha
Monuments & Flowers draws from the particularly accelerated ebb and flow of destruction and construction, death and regeneration — of cities, of ideologies, of nationalities, of quotidian life and ecosystems — that the region termed the ‘Middle East’ is continually undergoing. The artists selected here internalize this state of constant flux, employing both fictional and diaristic narratives while collapsing the hyper-real with the surreal. Scenes from daily life become infused with a subconscious overlay of desire, fear, alienation or utopian longings. Through highly evocative mixed use of time-based media; ranging from found super 8mm, to stained celluloid, to CGI, many of the works lean towards a retro-futurist lens that is highly attentive to the minutiae and habits of locale, yet slippery in its chronology.
Hand-Me-Downs, 2011
Yto Barrada (Morocco)
Keyword Searches for Dust, 2009
Malak Helmy (Egypt)
Don’t Touch Me Tomatoes & Chachacha, 2013
Lara Baladi (Egypt/Lebanon)
What Things May Come, 2019
Marianne Fahmy (Egypt)
Most Fabulous Place, 2008
Maha Maamoun (Egypt)
Domestic Tourism II, 2009
Maha Maamoun (Egypt)
Monuments & Flowers was curated as part of the ArteEast legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, preserving and presenting over 15 years of film and video programming by ArteEast.
Between 2012 and 2013, artist Lara Baladi created the immersive, surround-sound video installation, Don’t Touch Me Tomatoes & Chachacha as a direct response to the ill-concealed misogyny which had been surfacing around the world (and continues to), and which at the time, in Egypt in particular, was amplified by the use of sexual abuse as a counter-revolutionary tool.
Made with YouTube videos collected over a period of two years during the 2011 Egyptian revolution and its aftermath, Don’t Touch Me Tomatoes & Chachacha, is a tribute to the creative and transformative part women play in history, a role they are too often denied, in the Middle East and in the world at large.
As a response to a commission by Christian Dior to make a work for the exhibition Miss Dior––which highlighted the designer’s admiration for his sister’s role as a resistant in the second world war––this enchanting audio-visual experience, titled after one of Josephine Baker’s songs, Don’t Touch Me Tomatoes, is a "carousel" of fireflies in which iconic women artists, activists, and anarchists, such as Louise Michelle, Isadora Duncan, Alice Guy, and many more––are fireflies, who, if only for a moment, illuminate the world.
This work was originally conceived as a 7.1 surround sound video installation (projection at 180 degrees 380 X 118 inches).
Artwork commissioned by Dior.
About the Filmmaker
Lara Baladi is an internationally recognized Egyptian-Lebanese multi-disciplinary artist, archivist, and educator. Her artistic practice spans from photography, video, and sculpture to architecture and multi-media installations. Through a process of investigation into archives, her work examines the divide between reality, fiction, and fantasy, while also questioning memory, mythological and socio-political narratives, and personal histories and History.
Baladi’s social and political engagement goes beyond her artistic practice. For more than twenty years, she has been on the Board of two of the most influential institutions in the Middle East, the Arab Image Foundation in Lebanon, and the Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art in Egypt. During the 2011 Egyptian uprisings, under the umbrella title, Vox Populi, she began collecting iconography of protests. From this ongoing archive of data on the 2011 Egyptian revolution and other global, past and present, social movements, the artist has produced various projects, including media initiatives, art installations, and publications. Since 2015, she has been a Lecturer in MIT’s Program in Art, Culture, and Technology.
- Year2013
- Runtime9 minutes
- LanguageMultilingual
- CountryEgypt, Lebanon
- NoteIt is highly recommended to watch this film with headphones.
- DirectorLara Baladi
- ProducerUrubu
- AnimatorBastien Brenot
- Sound DesignNathaniel Robin Mann
Monuments & Flowers brings together a selection of seminal video work culled from the archives of ArteEast with the work of contemporary voices.
Curated by Regine Basha
Monuments & Flowers draws from the particularly accelerated ebb and flow of destruction and construction, death and regeneration — of cities, of ideologies, of nationalities, of quotidian life and ecosystems — that the region termed the ‘Middle East’ is continually undergoing. The artists selected here internalize this state of constant flux, employing both fictional and diaristic narratives while collapsing the hyper-real with the surreal. Scenes from daily life become infused with a subconscious overlay of desire, fear, alienation or utopian longings. Through highly evocative mixed use of time-based media; ranging from found super 8mm, to stained celluloid, to CGI, many of the works lean towards a retro-futurist lens that is highly attentive to the minutiae and habits of locale, yet slippery in its chronology.
Hand-Me-Downs, 2011
Yto Barrada (Morocco)
Keyword Searches for Dust, 2009
Malak Helmy (Egypt)
Don’t Touch Me Tomatoes & Chachacha, 2013
Lara Baladi (Egypt/Lebanon)
What Things May Come, 2019
Marianne Fahmy (Egypt)
Most Fabulous Place, 2008
Maha Maamoun (Egypt)
Domestic Tourism II, 2009
Maha Maamoun (Egypt)
Monuments & Flowers was curated as part of the ArteEast legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, preserving and presenting over 15 years of film and video programming by ArteEast.
Between 2012 and 2013, artist Lara Baladi created the immersive, surround-sound video installation, Don’t Touch Me Tomatoes & Chachacha as a direct response to the ill-concealed misogyny which had been surfacing around the world (and continues to), and which at the time, in Egypt in particular, was amplified by the use of sexual abuse as a counter-revolutionary tool.
Made with YouTube videos collected over a period of two years during the 2011 Egyptian revolution and its aftermath, Don’t Touch Me Tomatoes & Chachacha, is a tribute to the creative and transformative part women play in history, a role they are too often denied, in the Middle East and in the world at large.
As a response to a commission by Christian Dior to make a work for the exhibition Miss Dior––which highlighted the designer’s admiration for his sister’s role as a resistant in the second world war––this enchanting audio-visual experience, titled after one of Josephine Baker’s songs, Don’t Touch Me Tomatoes, is a "carousel" of fireflies in which iconic women artists, activists, and anarchists, such as Louise Michelle, Isadora Duncan, Alice Guy, and many more––are fireflies, who, if only for a moment, illuminate the world.
This work was originally conceived as a 7.1 surround sound video installation (projection at 180 degrees 380 X 118 inches).
Artwork commissioned by Dior.
About the Filmmaker
Lara Baladi is an internationally recognized Egyptian-Lebanese multi-disciplinary artist, archivist, and educator. Her artistic practice spans from photography, video, and sculpture to architecture and multi-media installations. Through a process of investigation into archives, her work examines the divide between reality, fiction, and fantasy, while also questioning memory, mythological and socio-political narratives, and personal histories and History.
Baladi’s social and political engagement goes beyond her artistic practice. For more than twenty years, she has been on the Board of two of the most influential institutions in the Middle East, the Arab Image Foundation in Lebanon, and the Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art in Egypt. During the 2011 Egyptian uprisings, under the umbrella title, Vox Populi, she began collecting iconography of protests. From this ongoing archive of data on the 2011 Egyptian revolution and other global, past and present, social movements, the artist has produced various projects, including media initiatives, art installations, and publications. Since 2015, she has been a Lecturer in MIT’s Program in Art, Culture, and Technology.
- Year2013
- Runtime9 minutes
- LanguageMultilingual
- CountryEgypt, Lebanon
- NoteIt is highly recommended to watch this film with headphones.
- DirectorLara Baladi
- ProducerUrubu
- AnimatorBastien Brenot
- Sound DesignNathaniel Robin Mann