The Ceremonial Vniform :: Birzeit Vniversity Mvsevm

The Ceremonial Vniform :: Birzeit Vniversity Mvsevm

March 20, 2014 – June 20, 2014 

OPENING on the 20th of March 2014 at 18:00

The Ceremonial Vniform :: Birzeit Vniversity Mvsevm is a design exhibition focusing on the manifestations of dress, material and cultural history, identity politics, magic and sexuality in the Palestinian imaginary.  Birzeit University Museum has invited the designer Omarivs Ioseph Filivs Dinæ to create this exhibition in its complementary capacity to the Museum’s stance towards contemporary creative practices and its critical reading of “cultural heritage” and social history.

The Ceremonial Vniform project started in 2012 as a reaction to the Palestinian National Authority’s statehood bid and frenzied campaign to acquire the status of full member in the United Nations. As a collection of garments, accessories, samples, techniques, and texts, The Ceremonial Vniform is an imagined system of dress for male officials in this would-be Palestinian state. The project further contemplates the particularities of dress and how it is used as a tool and symbol of power, identity, subjugation and liberation. The project critiques of the obsessive regurgitation of clichés and symbols by the Palestinian political and creative classes and how they have actually become complicit in the colonial industrial complex and therefore its benefactors. The project is a commentary on how rarely we create alternative paradigms – instead we appropriate the pervading narrative of power structures; we simply change uniform. 

Since its inception The Ceremonial Vniform has relied tremendously on the ethnographic collections at Birzeit University Museum for information and inspiration. The exhibition, showcases items from the Palestinian Costume and Tawfik Canaan Amulet collections in the context in which they were used and their part and role in the realisation of this project. 

The Ceremonial Vniform :: Birzeit Vniversity Mvsevm exhibition emphasises on design practice as a discipline and structural approach grounded in technique, methodology and theory. The exhibition aims to expose the process, systems, and layers of design work carried out by the designer to accomplish this project. There is particular stress on quality of finish, skill, and research as the cardinal columns of this endeavour. 

In line with the project’s concept and the designer’s ideology this exhibition was independently funded by the Museum and realised without the usual sprinkling of donor or sponsor logos. The designer has been keen to look at alternative and creative solutions to what he describes as ‘the problematic situation of too little or too much funding.’

Omarivs Ioseph Filivs Dinæ experiments with historical and contemporary Palestinian fabrics, techniques, and systems in an attempt to delineate the scope and limits of costume and dress. For The Ceremonial Vniform he has worked with shoemakers from Ramallah (Rahale), mother-of-pearl carvers from Beit-Sahour (Tamer), and embroiderers from Yatta and Beirut (INAASH-Association for the Development of Palestinian Camps in Lebanon). In addition, the work includes several collaborations with local and regional Arab creatives, like Palestinian Artist Dirar Kalash and Palestinian Musician Maya Khalidi, as well as Lebanese photographer and artist Tarek Moukaddem who has worked with the designer since 2009. Their latest collaboration, included in this exhibition, is ‘The Official Portrait’ which explores images of power, symbols of the nation, nostalgia, and ideas of gendered-dominance. 

It is worth noting that The Ceremonial Vniformcommenced in November 2012 as a response to the A.M. Qattan Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year Award competition for 2012 (YAYA2012). Earlier phases and parts of the project were exhibited in autumn 2012 (Ramallah) and summer 2013 (London).

GENERAL INFORMATION

The Ceremonial Vniform :: Birzeit Vniversity Mvsevm will open on March 20, 2014, at 18:00. Transportation will be available to take people from Ramallah to Birzeit University and back for the opening night. 

‘The Official Response’ a collaborative sound and image installation will be performed live on the opening day with Kalash and Khalidi. 

The exhibition is open daily from 9:00 to 16:00, except Sundays and Fridays.

For further information and inquiries, 

contact 02 298 2976 or bzumuseum@birzeit.edu

BIOS

Omarivs Ioseph Filivs Dinæ (b.1988) is a Palestinian designer from Al-Quds and Birzeit, unglamorously and nomadically living in Palestine and working between Al Quds, London and Beirut. An alumnus of London College of Fashion, he is preparing to return to university in September 2014 for an MA in Social Anthropology at Goldsmiths in London. His first collection, Silk Thread Martyrs, was debuted in London in 2011 at the Mosaic Rooms Gallery. Consequently, a garment from that collection was acquired by the British Museum – supposedly its first ever fashion acquisition. He has since worked on several research, training and curatorial projects pertinent to dress, craft and fashion. 

Omarivs Ioseph Filivs Dinæ is imaginative Latin for Omar Joseph son of Dina. 

Tarek Moukaddem (b.1988) is a Beirut based Lebanese photographer and visual artist from Tripoli. Long before his graduation from the Academie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA) in 2010, Moukaddem has been working with a number of established and emerging designers, both local and international. A contemporary of Omarivs Ioseph Filivs Dinæ, they met by chance in 2009 as a result of Moukaddem’s interest in the designer’s homemade sirwal-trousers. Their first collaboration was in 2010 on the Silk Thread Martyrs project.

Maya Khaldi (b.1987) is a Palestinian musician from Jerusalem, Palestine, a graduate of Berklee College of Music with a BM in professional music (Vocal Performance and Music Education), where she was also part of the Middle East Ensemble. Since returning to Palestine she has been teaching at the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music. Khaldi is continuously exploring her voice and searching for new and experimental collaborations. She is currently singing with several groups and ensembles. 

Dirar Kalash (b. 1982) is a Palestinian musician and visual artist. He works with a wide range of music, sound and art practices, from composition and improvisations to free jazz and noise. He has participated in many group exhibitions and art festivals in Palestine, Egypt and Europe, besides his usual local musical performances. Kalash’s performance, Stonified Voice, won second prize in the Young Artist of the Year Award 2012.

http://www.omarivsioseph.com/Omarivs_Ioseph_Filivs_Din_Projects/The_Ceremonial_Vniform____Birzeit_Vniversity_Mvsevm.html