Yara El-Sherbini

Hygrothermographs are inconspicuous mechanical machines used by museums and galleries to track the temperature and humidity of an exhibition space, to protect artworks. Other Forms of Regulation and Control is an intervention in which three of these machines are moved from the periphery to the center, I replaced the regulation human hair in these machines with hair from the three “scientifically” classified ethno-hair categories: “Afro,” “Asian,” and “Caucasian.”

By rupturing museum protocols, I question methods of monitoring public spaces, while also revealing how the idea of “race” and “data” always needs to be extrapolated and untangled. Audiences set this project in motion–people entering the exhibition space affect the humidity and readings on the graphs.

Each week’s visitors will be able to compare the new data as it goes up on the walls.Changing elements of the machine to reference race, and then presenting the data collected for comparative analysis, the work creates a dialogue about the engineering of data, in our data driven society. This is especially relevant in the context of perceived racial difference; ‘which machine will be more sensitive to change, and how is data interpreted and used?’, asking us to think about how data can be used to implement agendas and for longer-term social control.

There is my usual cheeky sense of playfulness, as the machines used to protect an artwork become the artwork.

You can see further installation images here.

Questioning is a series of prints developed in 2020, with playful questions which are homage to both at-home board games, and my unique style of pub quizzes.

Occupied/Freed is an intervention on a galleries toilet locks to indicate “occupied” when in use and “freed” when available, provoking questions of ownership and geopolitics. The piece identifies occupation of land as a form of control, and points to how borders are implemented to regulate the movement of people.

Passing Comment I & II are crossword puzzles around the themes of passing for the other, and vice versa, and back again, in the meltdown pot. I collaborated with Naeem Mohaiemen, as we are often in dialogue, and are currently collaborating on a series of crosswords.

We produced one for Tame the Wilderness? the first zine produced by Brief Histories Press, a family business based in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. They desire to find a way – as diasporic, refugee, immigrants, naturalized citizens – to work differently, and have recreated Brief Histories as a kind of protest, operating as a zine, ice cream wagon, and art and printed matter distribution space. 

We produced the second one for the publication BEST: Letters from Asian Americans and auctioned versions of these for the Cue Art Foundation, NY.

Arrivals + Departures is a new public art project which opened at Somerset House, from September 10th – November 10th 2020, and will tour the UK in 2021/22. You can read more about the work below.

The public artwork has been incredibly successful since it opened, engaging with a wide range of issues and audiences. You can hear about the work by watching this in-conversation Davina and I had with Jonathan Reekie, the director of Somerset House here.

Each week we had a series of digital takeovers, to explore different themes. You can read Somerset Houses blog post.

Integral to the boards, and online platform was a public programme of events.

Arrivals + Departures takes the format of a traditional split flap arrivals and departures board, though instead of announcing the arrivals and departures of planes or trains it announces new births (arrivals and those living) and commemorates lost lives (departures) of individuals.

The work is made or activated by public participation, for the public and located in a public art context. The data is received directly from the general public via smartphone technology (text, tweet, or using an app) and is automatically published both on the real life boards and a virtual board online. Online, the data is mapped, marking the locations of the individuals who are named. Politically the work names many unnamed individuals, creating a global record of the data of those born and those deceased.

Artsadmin our producing the work, with the support of Without Walls.

Roadmap For Peace is a participatory sculpture, where players navigate their way from Psagot to Bethlehem, on Scalextric tracks. The route maps out existing roads in Palestine and Israel, where due to restrictions on movement based on citizenship, the route becomes separated; one for Israeli citizens and one for Palestinians. It was commissioned for Now Play This 2018, at Somerset House, London.

The track was fabricated with Jono Sandilands.

My favourite magazine, New Scientist, wrote a review about Now Play This, writing my work was the most audacious work there.

CoolHunting wrote a blog about the festival, which I feel captures the intention of my piece. And you can see a couple of glimpses of my work, and listen to Holly Gramzio and George talk about Now Play This, in this short video. If you’d like to get an overview of the festival, Paul Callegan, writes for the British Council, and briefly mentions the work here.

*Portfolio image by Ben Peter Catchpole.

For the 2017 Venice Agenda’s, I was commissioned to create a printed piece on the subject of ‘The Contract’ for the Venice Agenda’s publication (which you can download). I wrote Dear Deidre, an advice column, on the subject of the unspoken social contract between the artist and institution. The publication, which began at the Venice Biennale, went to Turner Contemporary in June, and Folkstone in September. It includes written and creative contributions from artists including Jon Adams, Maria Thereza Alves, Michael Armitage, Jordan Baseman, Anne Bean, Gayle Chong Kwan, Jimmie Durham, Yara El- Sherbini, Tony Heaton, Hew Locke, Melanie Manchot, Hayley Newman, Tatsumi Orimoto, Terry Smith, Richard Wilson and Carey Young.

Operation Brexit is a game where players have 10 seconds to get the UK out of the EU. Commissioned for Now Play This, at Somerset house in Aril, 2017, it was the most popular post on Social Media for the entire overarching 10 day London Games Festival!

Putting a Hole in the Wall is one of 9 mini golf holes, as part of Doug Fishbones Leisure Land Golf, commissioned for the 56th Venice Biennale as part of the East Midlands (EM15) Pavillion in 2015. My mini golf hole invites players to navigate their golf ball through a series of inflexible and concrete-clad checkpoints, boundaries and border controls in a bid to finally putt the ball through the division wall. The golf hole replicates various aspects of the day-to-day reality within contested territories under occupation, exploring separation barriers as a historical and universal means to control and limit the movement of people worldwide.

After Venice it toured to the New Art Exchange from April -June 2016, and Quad Gallery, Derby from July-Sept 2016. Other artists golf holes included John Akomfrah, Eyal Wiezman, Ellie Harrison, Hetain Patel and Yinka Shonibare.

The Guardian wrote that our Leisure Land Golf was one of the TOP art attractions for summer 2016. And it was the pick of the week, for the Royal Academy!

Below is a Golfing World video on the exhibition.

This single-player artwork invites audiences to cautiously navigate along the charged US-Mexico border. The aim of the game is to get to the other side, without touching the wire, within one-minute. Tactical movement is advised over areas of higher risks, as when metal to metal makes contact, an electric circuit is formed, triggering a series of warning sounds and lights. The player has three chances of crossing without making contact. In Border Control the concentrated maneuvering across this territory demarcation activates critical thinking about border lines as power lines, and the implications of man-made lines, on the movement of millions of people and the shaping of identities.

This project was commissioned in 2015 for Bloom Projects by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara.

Over the last nine years, I’ve been collaborating with artist Davina Drummond. We began collaborating when we both became mothers, as a means to explore the impact of motherhood on our art practices. In 2016 we became British Council Fellows, undertaking a fellowship at Portland State University on the Social Practice MFA on the subject of Motherhood: A Social Practice. The project consists of three strands; social, educational and activist. The social strand takes the platform of a Facebook group as a tool to connect cross-continental mother social practice artists and art producers. The educational strand takes the form of lessons on the impact of motherhood on ones practice, both positive and challenging, for art students, as a subtle intervention into mainstream art pedagogy. And finally the activist strand takes the form of a makeshift Parent Artist Union, made up of artists, for artists, as a way to tackle the issue from within. The Union is working on devise a list of how institutions can better support parent artists, and provide training and assessments for institutions to see how artist-parent friendly they are.

Our collaborative work is part of the article written by Natalie Loveless in Contemporary Mamactivist Artists: A Forum on Maternal Activist Art for the Studies in the Maternal Special Issue on The Everyday Maternal Practice: Activist Structures in Creative Work, Summer 2016.

In 2016 we were also commissioned to create Quiz: Which Vacuum Cleaner suits your personality type? for Idle Women, as part of “The Grand Domestic Revolution” publication.

The Current Resistance is part of a series of participatory sculptural artworks which subvert the game ‘Buzz Wire’: players navigate metal words without forming an electric circuit, as when metal to metal touches it creates an electric charge – which triggers a warning buzz sound and light.

The words, separated, refer to the nature of the material of the work whereby current and resistance are terms used to describe an electric charge. In the context of a group show on the Middle East, it touches on the historical, current, and continuing political situation in the Middle East, where the relationship between the power of the people and the people in power has created a period of radical change.

Placed and played together the works charge each other, becoming a statement about current resistance movements and questioning what the current resistance is against.

Created for the group show

RCD>PLY>RWD>FFWD>STOP>EJ, Kashya Hilderbrand Gallery, London

What did a representative from the the British think tank, The Institute of Ideas suggest was the reason that Black people don’t go to galleries and museums…was it because they are:

a) Lazy

b) Shy

c) Too busy playing sports

The answer is below…I’ve been hosting my pub quizzes for 15 years. A Pub Quiz is an inherently live and participatory artwork; a quiz isn’t a quiz if people don’t take part…my playful, often provocative, always fun, constantly updated set of 36 questions explore knowledge production (how we know what we know). The questions are ever evolving in relation to current contexts, and are often commissioned to be site specific and context responsive.

My last pub quiz was commissioned by the British Council, for an artist assembly in New York, in Oct 2016. I asked the last question below for that oh so fun quiz….

Example questions:

2. How many squirrels has Iran arrested on suspicion of Spying?

3.Recently an 11th playing token was added to the well-loved capitalist bored game of monopoly, which reflects current trends. Was it a sack of money, a mobile phone, a gun, or a small homeless person who lost his house in the current financial downturn and spiralling national debt?

4.The Keffieh; the Palestinian headscarf, is available to buy in Topshop branches throughout the UK. Is this because

a) Resistance is the new black.

b) Debord’s notion of Recuperation, in which radical ideas and images become safe and commodified.

c) Vogue magazine voted it as a must have black and white classic.

5. What did the former U.S. Secretary of Education, Bill Bennett, say what would reduce crime rates in the US?

Increased access to Education

Decreased access to Video games

Tighter gun control

Aborting black babies

Answers:

1. B

2. 14

3. A sack of money

4.C

5. Aborting black babies

* A Pub Quiz was originally supported by the Arnolfini, over one year, as part of ‘Breathing Space’ in 2006.

The Current Situation re-appropriates the game “buzz wire”, in the form of a world map where up to 8 players can navigating the world, complete with internal borders ( contested and established) with a handheld wand. Its hugely fun and engaging, as when you mistakenly make contact with a border, you trigger a red warning light and alarm, and feel a buzz.

The politically charged nature of global boarders and the power they hold in terms of shaping geographies and identities, and the impact that is felt when national boarders are challenged and when they shift, is literally played out.

You can read a lovely blog post about the work here, written by Ben Harris.

The work was commissioned by the New Art Exchange in 2014, and was the main work in my solo show of the same name, which toured to Wolverhampton Art Gallery, and Gallery Oldham.

The End of History is the literal deconstruction of Francis Fukuyama’s book in which he discusses and in turn deconstructs the notion of Western liberal democracy as the end point of humanity’s socio cultural evolution. By hole punching every single page, cover to cover, of his literary work, the work highlights the parallel between the literal and practical deconstruction of theory and matter, probing how knowledge is produced and rarefied.

For my touring solo show in 2014 I physically deconstructed four very diverse publications, all read in the context of the geo-politics of my world map game, creating a dialogue between one and the other, exploring how these publications influence our world view and question how knowledge is assumed and produced.

In The End Of Empire, Empire by Hardt and Negri, a seminal text that talks about the state of empire today, has literally been deconstructed from cover to cover to become a mound of hole punches. The purpose of which is to invite visitors to deconstruct themselves, the notion of empire and to consider what empire means in the current situation in the world today.

The End Of The World playfully references a statement that we all talk about – By reducing a political world map to its very essence, identifiable only by the recognisable colour spectrum for referencing land and water, the work draws attention to the politics of maps and their power in defining and demarcating the world as we know it.

In 1916 the British French Sykes-Picot agreement carved up the Middle East into French and British territories. The installation demonstrates how the agreement yields the smallest amount of punched paper, yet whatever the French Diplomat, Francois George-Picot, and his British counterpart, Sir Mark Sykes, decided 100 years ago, still reverberates to this day. The End Of Agreements questions the appropriateness of the legal power assumed or bestowed upon people – who are those with the authority to draw such borders?

The End Of The Adventures Of Tintin In The Land Of Black Gold draws our attention to the secondary focus in the wider exhibition, the Middle East, and considers how stereotypes are created and accepted. In this edition of The Adventures of Tintin, the comic hero is depicted yet again as the western saviour who defeats eastern terrorist savages. This work questions the power comic fiction and other forms of popular culture have to instil specific world-views in children and adults.

I was artist in residence for the exhibition Wide Open School, at the Hayward Gallery, in 2012, and explored how we learn, or don’t learn vital emotional and psychological skills outside of traditional pedagogy, creating a playful alternative syllabus which offered topics that address skills required for dealing with everyday life, such as how to feel loved, or how to stop comparing yourself to old school friends. The syllabus was disseminated by the handout of a free mini syllabus booklet contained on the inside of free specially designed oyster card holders at train stations in London. A series of announcements were also made using the public address system at the Royal Festival Hall.

This photographs document a live participatory artwork commissioned by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. I invited members of the audience to join me in the museum’s library in order to give physical presence to the notion of ending conflict in the Middle East by manually hole punching every single page, cover-to-cover of the book ‘Conflict in the Middle East’

Commissioned by the V&A as part of the National Art Library’s new initiative to archive contemporary & modern Arab, Turkish & Iranian art and design in 2012.

Parisians Love to Speak English, was an audio work for the Diep-Haven Cross Channel Contemporary Arts Festival in 2014. Using the public address system onboard the ferry between Diep and New Haven, I created a series of announcements which asks us to consider how we, the public, assume and transfer knowledge of other cultures.

During the journey between New Haven and it’s maritime border the announcements explored stereotypes of “The French”, while during the journey between the French maritime border and its mainland the announcements explored “The British”, thus when the ferry crossed the maritime border, and the announcements were switched to talk about the other culture, the work marked the invisible maritime border which delimits the territory. The announcements were played in both English and French.

Another From of Regulation and Control was an intervention within the context of the museum, as part of The Global Contemporary at ZKM museum. Thermo-Hygrometers, placed on the periphery of exhibitions, measure humidity and temperature to tightly regulate and control the environment for the conservation of art works. For Another From of Regulation and Control I re-positioned an existing Thermo- hygrometer, moving it from the periphery of the exhibition into the centre to expose barely visible forms of curatorial regulation and control.

Produced in Cooperation with ZKM | Center for Art and Media, artist-in-residence program of the exhibition The Global Contemporary (2011)

Occupied Territory was an intervention on the toilet lock of a gallery in Spain. Playing with the words typical found on the toilet lock in Spain ‘Occupado/Libre’ which translate to Occupied/Free, I changed the text to say ‘Occupado/Librado’ meaning Occupied/Freed.

The toilet lock responded to the politics of occupation in Spain and the Basque region.

Universality Challenge is a one – hour game show based on the format of the popular game with a similar name, where there was a Town V Gown team. This touring show was site and context responsive, playing with notions of formal V knowledge.

Universality Challenge was first commissioned by Chelsea Theatre, and toured the UK, supported by Artsadmin, from 2008-2010.

Universality Challenge was shown at:

2010
Arnolfini, Bristol
The Junction, Cambridge

2009
Battersea Arts Centre, London

2008
RADAR, Loughborough
Chelsea Theatre, London

Public Address is a series of site specific sound installations, first produced during an artist residency at Hayward Gallery. Subverting the way in which PA systems broadcast instructions and notifications to the public, revealing the invisible mechanisms which govern the individual’s behaviour in the public sphere.

For my The Current Situation solo exhibition I created my third series of announcements which broadcast over the existing tannoy system in the galleries. These were titled ‘Where are you originally from? Answer: Britain.’ I wanted visitors to reflect on the reductive process that may take place when we consider one another’s cultural heritage. Observing ways in which stereotypes are created when we reduce the complexity of a nation, it’s history, it’s identity and the diversity of its people, to a series of simplistic references to do with the food, the weather or what the women look like etc. The work is a series of fictional statements which flipped the lens around to explore how a non-native might reference ‘Britishness’, if we, the audience, were to say ‘Britain’ as the answer to their question, ‘Where are you originally from?’

Example announcements:

“Women from the Midlands are so exotic”

During an artist residency at The Hayward Gallery the first edition was created and aired at the Royal Festival Hall, London. This edition explored informal knowledge exchange and was titled ‘How to Avoid Someone you Know on the Bus’.

Example questions broadcast on the existing tannoy system:

“Dose anybody know how to believe in Government?”

“Does anybody know how to stop comparing yourself to old school friends?”

“Does anybody know how to stop being friends with someone you no longer have anything in common with?”

The second edition created responded to the context of being an artist at an Art fair, and was announced during JustMad Art Fair, Miami in 2013.

Example announcements include:

“If you’re an artist, and you’re not exhibiting work here, its OK. You’re not a failure. Tell yourself art fairs are too commercial and you’d rather be in a museum show anyway.”

“Stop comparing yourself to other people.”

“Remember, this is probably the worst moment to show your portfolio to a gallerist, even if they look friendly and available, they’re not here to meet you”

A Weather House for the Current Climate

Mixed media weather house; wood, plastic, metal, catgut, paper, lace. 32 x 20 x 56 cm

A Weather House for the Current Climate is an updated traditional German Weather house, where a man and woman exit a Doner Kebab Shop, dependant on weather conditions. This contemporary representation of German residential living; a multiple-storey post war modernist building above a Doner Kebab shop, replaces the chalet as a national symbol, questioning national German culture and intercultural exchange, through folk art means.

Reproducing The Current Climate are a limited edition of 10 hand made weather houses which echo the cheap mass manufactured aesthetic of traditional weather houses.

Documenting Climate Change records an intervention where I put up for sale these contemporary weather houses in a traditional German Christmas Market, selling the work back to the locals in a public context.

Documenting Climate Change

Installation documenting an intervention

Two framed c-print images of the intervention 20 x 30 cm, One framed original receipt of sale 20 x 30 cm

Produced in Cooperation with ZKM | Center for Art and Media, artist-in-residence program of the exhibition The Global Contemporary (2011)

A Rather Trivial Pursuit draws on how Trivial Pursuit is the archetypal board game, where we unknowingly consume a specific world view; how we assume and transfer knowledge whilst we engage in what appears to be an ordinary, inconsequential pastime. I wrote a series of playful self authored trivia questions, humorous, political, subjective, opening the debate over commonly-held certainties.

“Arguably, general knowledge is a set of uncontested givens which appear apolitical and a-historical at first glance, but which actually frame the way we interact with the world”

The original pilot version of this piece was commissioned by Delfina Foundation, London. It has since been exhibited around the world, including Lombard-Freid (New York) where I was commissioned to make a US edition, the live art festival ‘Tasty’ (London), Artsadmin (London), Athr Gallery (Saudi Arabia) and La Caja Blanca Project Room (Madrid). Each box contains all the elements necessary for a game, including question cards, board instruction manuals and dice.

Socially Engaged was a site-specific intervention, made for an exhibition titled ‘At Your Service’. Playing with the terms usually found on a toilet lock; Vacant/Engaged, I changed the text to read Socially Engaged/Socially Vacant, as a playful nod to the role of art and the artist in relation to social and political concerns, and the framing of art practices’ and positions.

A veiled woman was arrested as a threat to national security

She claimed she was working undercover

I’ve been writing my own jokes since I published a joke book with BOOKWORKS called ‘Sheikh ‘n’ Vac’ in 2005, exhibiting a selection of jokes, mainly in shows explore art and humour. I often use brightly coloured plastic magnetic letters, as I think there is a lightness to them.

The jokes touch on the Muslim Vernacular, and are as relevant today as they were 12 years ago. They have been exhibited widely to include:

Should I be laughing at this? Paz Y Comedias, Spain

Haha Road at Mostyn Gallery, Wales and Quad Gallery, Derby.

Great British Art at Norwich Castle Museum.

Joking Aside, Bury St Edmonds Art Gallery, Suffolk

Auctions Speaks Louder Than Words is an intervention which explores social capital within the art world, the advantage created by person’s location in a structure of relationships, and the value of those networks: basically, it’s not what you know but who you know. During the private view of an exhibition I’m part of, an evening typically recognised as a space for networking.

INVITE:

Come along to an evening of networking, were artists, curators, critics, press, gallerists and the average punter, can relax over free wine, some cheap nibbles and some live art.

Social connective-ness is one of the most powerful determinants of our well being; the more integrated we are within our community, the less likely we are to experience colds, heart attacks, cancer, depression, and premature death of all sorts, so since social isolation can be unhealthy, lets get on with it and develop our networks. Remember social capital does not only help the individual; it affects the entire art community. Communities with high social capital just work better! So come on down, the price is right [it’s free] to the Chelsea Space

After mingling with the guests to actively collect there contact information, which I record in a little black book of contacts, and then auction at the end of the evening, thus requesting the participants of the auction, most of which will find themselves as contacts within the book, to determine the value of social capital. The documentation of the event is a receipt of sale, which is then displayed within the exhibition.

The work has been held in Can Marqués Museum (Spain),Chelsea Space (UK) and The David Roberts Art Foundation (UK).

Light Relief was a playful intervention on a stone-relief where I attempted to repair a damaged historic object using an everyday contemporary object; here a hand rolled cigarette. The title plays with the dual interpretations of the ‘light relief’ from a cigarette break, Christ as the light, and a relief (stone casting).

Home and Abroad residency, Portugal, Triangle Arts/Gasworks, 2010

Critical Mass, 2008, Plastic, Fabric

Critical Mass is part of a body of work using skittles; which includes, Tipping Point (image below) and Skit (a large scale photographic print) You can read an article in French here about the series, which was part of the exhibition Rebels, recently in Mexico City as part of the festival of textiles, at gallery Casa De Francia, at the French institute of Latin America, which travelled from Musée Bargoin, Clermont-Ferrand, France.

Skit is a series of single Skittles, with different headscarves, which are large life size photographic prints. One is in the collections of Manchester Art Gallery, which was part of in the group show Speech Acts. Here is a video of artist Naeem Mohaiemen talking about my work on the show.

A Carpet Bomb, 2006

C-print mounted on aluminium (Still from the video piece A Demonstration)

A Carpet Bomb playfully investigates the use of euphemistic language used to address the tactics employed by western forces in the Middle East. This photograph is the portrait of one of the carpet bombs I produced during the filmed performance piece ‘A Demonstration’ where I taught the audience how to make a carpet bomb using household items, parodying the format of the popular TV show Blue Peter. You can see a video of some of my work and read an article in French here about my Critical Mass and A Carpet Bomb, which is part of the exhibition Rebels. It is moving to Mexico City on December 7th 2017- March 31st 2018, part of the festival of textiles, and will be at gallery Casa De Francia, at the French institute of Latin America. It’s travelling from Musée Bargoin, Clermont-Ferrand, France.