Video 

Ruya Shop: Fernand Léger’s Ballet Mécanique (1924)

This weekend the Ruya Shop is screening Fernand Léger’s avant-garde film Ballet Mécanique (1924). Location: Mutanabbi Street, Baghdad Time: 10am – 2pm Date: Friday 4 May – Saturday 5 May Ballet Mechanique reflects the modernist fascination with industrialisation, and concerns about the mechanisation of everyday life.  The film is directed by French Surrealist artist Fernand…
Essay 

‘Art, Companionship and Everyday Life’ by Aneta Szyłak

In 2008, the curator Aneta Szyłak and the artist Hiwa K founded Estrangement, a series of workshops for artists in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. In this essay written ten years later as the introduction for Ruya Notebooks #2, Szyłak reflects on the challenges of this innovative project. Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes around…
Interview 

What is an Image, a Sound, A Word? Interview with the artist Hassan Massoudy

Hassan Massoudy draws on his training as a calligrapher to create energetic compositions based on the written word. In an artistic career that has spanned 45 years, Massoudy’s experimental approach has pushed the limits of a rigid calligraphic tradition. His work includes the writings of poets and philosophers from all ages and cultures, ranging from…
Interview 

Memories of the Future: Interview with Syrian artist Ghaith Mofeed

Regional Conversations is a series of online articles by the Ruya Foundation, which addresses issues surrounding art and conflict in the wider Middle East. Last summer, Ghaith Mofeed, a young artist from Damascus, buried half of an expired Syrian document beneath the ground in the town of Cuenca, Ecuador. He gathered some of the soil…