2014-Interview with Myrna Ayad – Reflections on FotoFest

Reflections on FotoFest, and other Houston Stories

MA – I’m looking to get your overall opinion on the show 

KH – Overall I am very satisfied with the quality of the art and of the organization. The level of organization shows the thirty years of cumulative experience in producing this biennale. I know this for a fact as I have worked closely with the organizers online for around a year and a half; the online dialogue started slowly with occasional portfolio questions and issues, and by the three months prior to the opening. The overall production is excellent. I do understand that some exhibited projects are better than other projects. I have some reservations on certain practices, but all in all, I love the way the whole exhibition was assembled, produced and curated. 

MA – are you happy to have participated? 

KH – I am honored and very pleased to have been part of this exhibition. I have known about Wendy Watriss and Fred for at least 20 years. I have known about the biennale for the same period of time, and it was a dream to even be invited as the biennale has a strategy of thematic regional selection on every episode, and the idea to have an “Arab Art” exhibition was –to me—far fetched. I must say that a chain of serendipities, coincidence, fantastic networking and encounters led to Wendi, Fred and the curator Karin Von Roques meeting and agreeing on the exhibition as we have seen it. I must say that I am happy to have been part of the show and of the collateral conferences accompanying the opening and the weeks that ensued. I am also happy to have worked with the FotoFest committed team of producers, and with the portfolio reviews event, which is almost another super biennale concurrent with the official event.

MA – What did you think of the overall curation? 

KH – I like the curatorial process and the dialogue I have had with Karin Von Roques since our first exhibition together in 2007 at the Kunstmuseum Bonn. For FotoFest, we have entered into a dialogue –rather a trialogue, as Simone Anna Blumenthal, Karin’s assistant curator also took part– over twenty four months ago. I believe in Wifredo Pareto’s theory of 80/20 law: we cannot expect 100% of the artworks/art projects to be exquisite. I would say that the overall result was that we had over 80% excellent works, which is a brilliant ratio and is definitely the work of the curator. I still think that FotoFest has this year almost over 95% exquisite production. I think the curator has a lot to do with this, alongside the FotoFest dedicated team.

MA – What kind of message do you feel audiences will walk away with?

KH – I think the principal benefit is that FotoFest showcased art practices from what is curatorially sometimes addressed as “the periphery”. Apart from works of four or five names/artists, the American audiences are exposed within this Biennale to a diversity of practices that may not have been otherwise exhibited in Houston –or anywhere else at the USA at that–. The American audiences will have a chance to see issues of gender, identity, migration, subjugation and other concepts addressed by creators from a region that have long been vilified or at best cases “exoticised”. The collateral round tables and conference sessions attempted also to correct certain cliché images of the Arab region, culture and the Western phobias in some cases.