“The Man Who Talked Until He Disappeared: Bani Abidi in Palestine” Exhibition Opening

The Man Who Talked Until He Disappeared: Bani Abidi in Palestine

BZU Museum and A.M. Qattan Foundation

Fall Semester 2022/2023

Birziet University Museum in collaboration with A.M. Qatan Foundation are pleased to announce the opening of our exhibition:

“The Man Who Talked Until He Disappeared: Bani Abidi in Palestine”

This anthology of Bani Abidi's work travels through the extraordinary as well as the mundane, with a keen sense of humor as we follow the everyday acts of exposing power. Every piece in this exhibition was re-produced locally and transformed to reveal and expose the contradictions of contemporary life from Karachi to Palestine and all the stations in between. 

About the artist/experimenter:

Bani Abidi was born in Karachi, studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and now resides and works between Karachi and Berlin. In her work, she travels between various mediums to achieve a wildly provocative and innovative style. She uses photography, video, sound and installation as her artistic intervention in politics and culture, often through humorous and absurd vignettes. Abidi is a unique artist who defies categories or labels. Part stylized documentary, part performance and part speculation, her work often features actors and non- actors as she reveals the extraordinary in what may seem ordinary. Everyday scenes — through her artistic lens — transform into a commentary on the absurdity of power. The most visceral theme, however, is humor—Abidi's acknowledgement of the absurd, and appreciation of laughter as a radical act. She invites us to laugh through the absurd that is at once a commentary on oppressive power as well as a commentary on the vitality of the oppressed.