Abounaddara, the last word (for now)

Today is the last session of my class Art Education 5688: The Right (to the) Image (for All): Marketing, Communications and Social Media for Nonprofit Arts Institutions.

This composit image from my syllabus comprises a found piece of clipart online, representing different social media platforms in the form of a megaphone, framed by two images of the poster by Hans Haack WE (ALL) ARE THE PEOPLE (2017), created for documenta 14, in Athens and Kassel.

The work in the class has been focused on the Wexner Center for the Arts – currently at the epicenter of a national crisis around the Epstein-associate, local billionaire Les Wexner, whose donations created the center named after his father. The students chose an event (film/video; performing arts) or exhibition at the Wex to understand the marketing, communications and social media work of the arts center, with a specific focus on a social and ethical issue in social media to engage with.

I am grateful to several staff members from the Wex who took to time to visit the class & answer questions from the students about their work.

There is another documenta 14 connection here, because one of the exhibitions – Corinthians – is by documenta 14 artist Naeem Mohaiemen.

The other constant from documenta 14 that has accompanied our work in the class, albeit at a distance, has been the work of the Syrian film collective Abounaddara. Their emergency cinema dispatches during the Syrian Civil war exemplify their focus on the right to the dignified image, which has been a consistent topic in our class discussions, especially as we try to understand how the use of social media for marketing in a nonprofit arts organization connects with the art on show, in all its rich complexity and nuance, especially in this fraught political moment, both in the US and the world, where social media in the age of Generative AI creates less-than-dignified images.

I have been posting here, every Friday, for the duration of the class – and this posting will continue after the class has finished, the short videos of Abounaddara that were posted by the Facebook account of documenta 14 back in 2016. I wanted to think about what these videos meant for us today ten years later, amid different violent conflicts (e.g. Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, and on and on) and competing revolutionary commemorations (e.g. America250).

But to mark the last class before the students deliver their final presentations, I wanted to give Abounaddara the last word and the following videos will be shown at the end of today’s class. Here is the final PowerPoint slide of the class.