Working in partnership with creative institutions in Kuwait and the four UK regions, Making Marks Kuwait facilitated group visits for nominated artists to Kuwait and the UK, offering funding for creative, community engagement programmes under the project’s themes over the following year. A short film documenting the artists’ experiences was also made by Hydar Dewachi, a British Iraqi artist and film maker.
The programme invited the artists to consider the positive impact of international working and exchange, and how it can mark us both personally and creatively. Throughout the facilitated visits, artists explored transformations that can take place through the exchange of ideas and practices from one cultural environment to the next.
In April 2019, the UK artists visited Kuwait where they, led by artist Deema AlGhunaim, visited galleries, museums and other cultural spaces, meeting artists including Ghadah Alkandari and Aseel AlYaqoub.
In August 2019, the Kuwait artists travelled to Belfast, Yorkshire, and North Wales, exploring the diverse cultural landscapes of the UK regions including visiting the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Belfast Exposed Gallery, and the Welsh Mining Museum.
Since the trips, the artists either delivered their creative responses in their home communities, or are exhibiting them for the first time on the Making Marks website. A group exhibition of all the artists’ work was planned for March 2020, but this was reconfigured into this digital platform and the Making Marks KW online event series as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Making Marks Kuwait was supported by British Council Kuwait and was run in collaboration with Madeenah, Manifesto 13, and LOYAC in Kuwait, and Belfast Exposed, Fruitmarket Gallery, Mostyn and The Hepworth Wakefield in the United Kingdom.
Artists’ Projects | مشاريع الفنانين
الدروع (الحواجز)
ثنايا الزمان
خلق المساحات
همهمة
كون موازي
رموز التراب
ألخلل
نسيج القصص