Wanas
28 June - 14 July
Opening at 19:00 on Friday 28 June
And thereon for three weeks until 14 July Fri-Sun 16:00-19:00
at Art-Lab
Perleberger Str. 60, 10559 Berlin
Wanas exhibition
By artist and photographer Mohamed Badarne and journalist and writer Hiba Obaid
Commissioned by Counterpoints Arts
Presented in collaboration with Art-Lab Berlin
The project aims to glimpse the rich tapestry of life on a bustling street in Berlin. Through a compelling fusion of striking imagery and evocative narratives, the project invites you to embark on a transformative experience, where a single day becomes a portal to an entire lifetime.
‘Wanas’ (Arabic) meaning: a feeling of, for example, being on your own when you hear a song or come across a smell that reminds you of your homeland and you want to ‘hug’ it, absorb it.
Hiba Obaid, writer
Hiba Obaid is a Palestinian journalist specialising in cultural journalism and podcasting, based in Berlin.
She studied Arabic literature in Aleppo, Syria.
Having worked as an editor at Deutschlandradio, where she started her first bilingual podcast that delves into the daily life of Berlin, and having been a recipient of prestigious international fellowships, she is now expanding her documentary and journalistic writing into more poetic contents and the community contexts.
As a writer she also contributes opinion pieces to both German newspapers and Arabic magazines.
She is a Producer for Sonnenallee Podcast.
Mohamed Badarne, artist & photographer
Born in Galilee, Mohamed Badarne has been a social activist since he was a teenager. Until 2012, when he received his diploma in photography, he worked as a school teacher and NGO worker. Since then, Mohamed has dedicated his professional life solely to photography - as an artist, trainer, activist and curator.
He works with international organisations, NGOs, and communities to conduct workshops on social photography, visual campaigning, and investigative photojournalism. For his own projects, he received grants from renowned art foundations and human rights organisations. His projects ‘Come Back Safely’, ‘Forgotten Team’, and ‘Crack 708’ were exhibited, among others, in Amman, Beirut, Berlin, Brussels, Geneva, and New York.
Following on several months of the artists’ conversations with local communities, Sonnenallee project Wanas will exhibit ten large portraits of local shop owners, people who live or work in the street or visit it, with short texts extracted from interviews with them. The aim of the project is to document and celebrate local stories of a very mixed and diverse community associated with Sonnenallee.
Wanas catalogue
In parallel with preparations for the Wanas exhibition at Art-Lab, Counterpoints Arts has been working closely with Hiba Obaid and Mohamed Badarne on publishing a catalogue with the exhibition panels photographs and longer selection of documentary and poetic texts about the participants who took part in the project, with an introductory essay by Dr Natasha Davis. The publication is in English and Arabic. Designed by Haya El Khoury and translated from Arabic into English by Tamer Ajaj. Copies will be available at the opening of the exhibition at Art Lab on 28 June, with a special Neukölln launch at Refuge Worldwide Radio later in the summer, date to be announced.