Skip to content

Khaled Ramadan

Khaled Ramadan

area: Film, Theory

From cinematic performance - Don Juan Report, Aljazeera studio

Still from RobOman. The Inner Circle

Still from RobOman.

Still from RobOman. Frankincense Aromatic

Key Facts

nationality

Lebanon

area

Film, Theory

residence

Frederiksberg (DNK)

recommending institution

frei_raum Q21 exhibition space

time period

November 2016 - November 2016

Khaled Ramadan ‐ Artivist, Filmmaker, Curator and Art Writer. Currently, director of Bait Muzna Center for Art Film, Oman. Ramadan's professional areas of expertise are the history of art and visual culture, investigative aesthetics, constructed media, and documentary filmmaking. For the past decade his work has navigated the fields of art research, theory and practice, with a particular emphasis on the topic of informational aesthetics.
Far from the traditional methodology of filmmaking, Ramadan’s specialized approach is that of a transformative archivist; his work presents an unexpected arrangement and exploration of visual and geographical mapmaking that is committed to bringing about social equality, representation, and memory in relation to history.
Ramadan's film practice has been most inspired by The Language of New Media of media theorist Lev Manovich, whose theories indicate how the re‐conceptualization of filmmaking can function as a tool to understand the power relations existing between film critic, media, contemporary art, and visual culture. In his production, Ramadan often applies comparable theoretical knowledge with the object of learning and likewise becoming more informed about communities and evolving social systems. His scope is to record the invisible, to span neglected history in a non‐journalistic fashion, as an archivist or révélateur.

He participated in among others:

Be‐diversity, MUSE di Trento, Italy 2015
A Room of His Own, The Artsonje Center Seoul 2014
Overflow, The Politics of Water, Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul 2014
The Maldives Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale 2013
Manifesta 8, Spain
Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong Museum of Modern Art, China
UCCA, Beijing, China
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
KW Berlin, Germany
Ramadan was the appointed curator of the Maldives Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale 2013 and co‐curator of Manifesta 8, Spain 2010.

In 2009 Al‐Jazeera TV produced a documentary about Ramadan’s work and activities. He is member of the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art (IKT) and The International Association of Art Critics (AICA). Founder of the art collective Chamber of Public Secrets since 2004.

Khaled Ramadan

Projectinfo

The RobOman Project
Arab States’ relation to innovation and the notion of the State’s intellectuals Multidisciplinary art project and film by Khaled Ramadan

Background:
The significance of art and culture on contemporary social conditions could mean that art and culture are here to raise awareness of issues that society might otherwise miss, and play a crucial progressive role in shaping societies by building peer to peer support, provide and produce knowledge, experience, and liberal participation.
In the Arab world, Arab states fear the notion of Culture, as defined by Jean-Francois Lyotard in The Post-Modern Condition; culture is a social expression and a space for change. Yet for most Arab States, culture is a means of control, a tool to cover up its anti democratic political behavior.
In the Arab world for as late as the nineties (and beyond) most institutions, political and cultural activities were controlled by the state. Through its various systems and institutions Arab states placed most intellectuals and artists under its control, softly directing them to interact with its mechanized policy and economy offering them in return space of promotion, positions, legitimacy and awards, very closely to what Egypt is witnessing today.
Remaining unconditionally incorporated in the trap of the state and its institutional mechanism, Arab intellectuals who choose to cater for the political regimes end up assisting them to obtain a cultural façade.
Across the Arab world between the 50s and the 90s the cultural façade remained regressive, allowing no space of free critical thinking or freedom of innovation while all cultural productions were serving and intellectually defending the state’s position.
These critical conditions remain intact in most Arab States till today and notably yet invisible to the outside world the Sultanate of Oman a secretive police state stands out as a unique case worth a comprehensive study.

Back to main navigation

Cookie Settings

This websites uses cookies to give you the best possible service. Detailed information can be found in our Terms of use and Data Protection Regulations.

Technically essential

Technically essential cookies used to ensure the basic functionality of the website.

Statistics

Functional cookies used to ensure the proper performance of the website.

Marketing

Target-oriented cookies used to improve user experience.