Drawing Paradise exhibition in Sussex

Emily Johns travelled to Iran in 2006 and again this February on an international peacemaking delegation. She has created an exhibition of lino prints about the history of British/Iranian relations over the last century – tobacco, tutus, coups and chemical weapons.

Drawing Paradise on the ‘Axis of Evil’  4 – 17 July

Hastings Arts Forum 36 Marina, St Leonards on Sea, TN38 0BU Preview: Friday, July 05 at 6:30 – 8:30pm

www.drawingparadise.org

Accompanying events:

Thursday 4 July 7.30pm: The Cow, Iranian film hosted by St Leonards Film Society

Thursday 11 July 11:00am: Artist’s talk
7.30pm: A Separation, Iranian film hosted by St Leonards Film Society

Saturday 13 July 12:00am – 2:00pm: Printmaking and stories for children age 8-12yrs

Sunday 14 July 2:30pm: Iranian film and discussion hosted by St Leonards Film Society

Tuesday 16 July 7:00pm – 9:00pm: “The Rose and the Nightingale” a Persian Divan with divine refreshments. Bring Persian poetry to share. Donations welcome. Stephen Watts will be reading his translations of Ziba Karbassi, also two very fine  poets Reza Baraheni & Esmail Kh’oi. Krysia Mansfield and Las Pasionaras will be singing her new composition composed for the exhibition. Sufi stories told by Ariane Hadjilias. Rumi performed by Fari Bradley.

 

Geographies of War

The North Lodge at UCL, Gower Street. 18-27 March 2013

An exhibition at University College London. Website link here

This exhibition explores how artists with diverse practices and perspectives experienced the invasion and occupation of Iraq and how they responded to it by engaging with questions of space, place, landscape and territory.

Bringing together artists from Iraq and Britain, it shows six works that give material form to the violence, anxiety and ruin of war but which also raise questions about resistance, resilience and dreams of peace. Opening in the week of the tenth anniversary of the invasion, the exhibition presents alternative perspectives on the conflict and challenges our ways of seeing war.

Review

In Trebuchet Magazine

Event
Beyond the Geographies of War: Exploring Art and Peace

UCL Department of Geography, Pearson Building, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT 11am-4pm,
27th March 2013

Introduction
Questions of geography – of space, place, home, environment, landscape and territory – are a recurring theme in the responses of artists to war. But how do they figure in the relationship between art and peace? How can we understand the role that spatial practices and spatial themes play in creating peace as well as in articulating resistance to war and violence? This workshop will explore these questions with reference to the Iraq war but also branch out to consider the relationship between geography, art and peace more broadly. With talks by artists Rashad Selim and Emily Johns and academic Bernadette Buckley (Goldsmiths, University of London), and touching on issues of oil, water and ecology as well as politics and war, the workshop provides an opportunity to reflect on how art, activism and critical spatial practices can inform one another.