Project Summary

At March Meeting 2011 Barrak Alzaid presented two projects that are planned for 2012 and 2013 in Kuwait, his country of origin. The first project will constitute of series a dinners that will take place every day for an entire month, to which Alzaid will invite a random assortment of new guests from Kuwaiti society each evening. The ensuing discussions will be documented and presented as an exhibition at the end of the month. The second performance will harness the opinion of the huge footfall in Kuwaiti malls and cafes. Participants will be asked a series of questions related to human rights and social issues, such as gender and sexuality, in exchange for a gift. The gift will hold a chip that will be programmed with the participant’s responses, and as they make their way around the mall they will trigger screens that pose counterarguments and hubs that prompt discussion. Alzaid’s practice is aimed at challenging accepted codes of understanding in relation to the body.

Presentation Proposal

The body remains a fraught and contentious site, particularly within live and embodied performance. My piece will be a site specific and multimedia performance installation. Through objects and embodied performance, I will occupy public spaces in Kuwait such as coffee shops and malls in an effort to challenge and expand what is possible in corporeal representation. In Kuwait an individual’s physical body is charged with anxiety and shame—so much so that legal code has reified separation of gender in schools, eliminated DSLR cameras from the public arena and rendered cross dressing illegal in public spaces. This widespread policing obfuscates traditions of cross dressing in performance that date back nearly sixty years to Umm Ali, a character in a classic Kuwaiti TV show Darb il Zalag and extends to contemporary theatre practices. I wish to recover this rich archive of ‘queer’ and non-normative bodies through my performance.

Barrak Alzaid is an activist, performance artist and foodie. He was recently invited to showcase a multi-media live performance piece at Home-Land, a project of Bushwick Open Studios and B49 Studios. His recent article, Fatwas and Fags: Violence and The Discursive Production of Abject Bodies, is forthcoming in the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law. He is a graduate of the Performance Studies Masters Programme at New York University.

November 2011

Subjects: Artist Projects