Photographer Mohamed Somji on Representation, Community and Visual Practice in MENASA

Curator Rana Beiruti on Jordan's design scene and the diverse landscape of Arab design

Rana Beiruti is an Amman-based curator working across art, architecture and design. She co-founded Amman Design Week in 2016, directed it for three editions, and in 2024 curated Arab Design Now, the headline exhibition of the inaugural Design Doha Biennial, surveying more than 70 designers from across the Arab world. This conversation covers Jordan's design scene and why its so-called resource scarcity is actually its strength, with designers working in local stone, clay and foraged materials. Rana makes the case for craft not as something to be fossilized but as a living practice that adapts to new technologies and current needs. She talks about the activists behind Al Barakah Wheat, reviving local grain varieties in a country that went from producing 200% of its wheat needs to importing almost all of it, and about curating an exhibition called Arab Design Now when the first question is what does Arab even mean.

Spandana Gopal on Indian Design Beyond the Stereotypes

In this episode we speak to Spandana Gopal, a designer based between Bangalore and London, whose studio Tiipoi sets out to challenge Western perceptions of Indian design. Spandana talks about moving beyond the kitsch stereotypes of embellishment, bright colours, and romanticised narratives to make the case for India's everyday utilitarian design and innovation. From working with Longpi potters in the Ukhrul district of Manipur to collaborating with artisans in Channapatna, Karnataka, she shares the realities of building production systems that blend traditional craft with modern manufacturing, and why she refuses performative storytelling about Indian craft.

Artist Noor Abuarafeh on Archives, Power and Who Decides What is Remembered

In today’s new episode of Changing Narratives, we speak with Palestinian visual artist Noor Abuarafeh, whose work addresses memory, history and the archive.  Noor talks to us about how she traces absences and questions the complexity of history including how it is shaped, constructed, made, and understood.   We delve into several of her works, focusing in particular on ‘Observational Desire on a Memory that Remains.’ A short film that begins with a group photograph at an exhibition opening in Jerusalem in 1985. Fourteen artists stand together. One of the artists, Saqr Al Qatil, becomes the narrator of this piece, which reveals itself as a powerful and elegiac act of resistance against forgetting. Searching for context, Noor found that no comprehensive Palestinian art archive exists from before 1993, the year the Oslo Accords were signed. Most cultural institutions were established afterwards. It is not until she managed to find contact of his family members and a friend that she was able to build a visual narrative and archive of his life and work.  Tracing his story became a way of revisiting an undocumented wider artistic moment in Jerusalem. In reconstructing one life, the work also exposes the fragility of how cultural memory is recorded, labelled and preserved. At a moment when institutions such as the British Museum have removed the word Palestine from parts of their displays, Noor Abuarafeh’s work feels especially timely. Watch 'Oberservational Desire on a Memory that Remains' here https://vimeo.com/116973160?fl=pl&fe=sh

Visual Artist Priscila Barbosa on Feminism, Muralism in São Paulo, Latin American Identity, and Reclaiming the Female Body

Priscila Barbosa, visual artist, muralist and illustrator from São Paulo, discusses using public art to reclaim the image of women as agents of resistance rather than objects of spectacle. We talk about growing up in the east zone of São Paulo, discovering feminism through Latin American thinkers such as Verónica Gago, and challenging the stereotypes imposed on Brazilian women both at home and abroad. Priscila reflects on painting her own body in murals, confronting patriarchal narratives embedded in the history of Latin American muralism, and why public space remains a political arena. This episode explores feminism in Brazil, generational legacy, street art festivals, and the responsibility of artists to reshape representation. Hosted by Nissrin Zaptia and Giovanna Dunmall.

Photographer Mohamed Somji on Representation, Community and Visual Practice in MENASA

Mohamed Somji, Director of Gulf Photo Plus in Dubai, reflects on building one of the UAE’s leading platforms for photography and visual culture. He discusses the early days of Gulf Photo Plus, the structural gaps it responded to in the MENASA region, and how questions of representation continue to shape how the Middle East is seen. We talk about Slidefest, the exhibition A Memorial in Fragments created in honour of Palestinian photographer Majd Arandas, and what it means to make work without deferring to inherited hierarchies of recognition. Hosted by Nissrin Zaptia and Giovanna Dunmall. https://gulfphotoplus.com/ [https://gulfphotoplus.com/] https://www.mohamedsomji.com/ [https://www.mohamedsomji.com/] https://www.instagram.com/msomji/?hl=en [https://www.instagram.com/msomji/?hl=en]