Birzeit University Museum opens an art exhibition by Bani Abidi

The Birzeit University Museum opened the art exhibition Bani Abidi: The Man Who Spoke until He Disappeared on Saturday, November 5, 2022, in cooperation with the A.M. Qattan Foundation. The opening event was attended by Birzeit University President Dr. Beshara Doumani, museum director Dr. Rana Barakat and general director of the Qattan Foundation Fida Touma.

Bani Abidi is a Pakistani artist who studied visual art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and currently lives in Berlin. Abidi’s work invites viewers to the theater of the absurd, where humor is an antidote to the fanatical ridiculousness of authoritative powers.

Abidi combines various media that interweave autobiographical fiction with sociopolitical commentary and satire. Her subtle and provocative style transforms the museum into a journey into the absurdity of life and the sweet and often bitter reality that we survive.

Barakat commented that “every piece in this exhibition was reproduced locally and transformed to reveal and expose the contradictions of contemporary life from Karachi to Palestine and all the stations in between.” Abidi’s work exhibits means and methods to resist colonial power through artist expression and experimentation. With a keen sense of humor and an ability to expose the brutal audacity of everyday navigation through all its ironies and contradictions, Bani’s work is an invitation to think otherwise.

The exhibition is open at Birzeit University Museum from Monday-Thursday and Saturday from 9 A.M. to 3 P.M. until the end of the 2022–23 academic year.