1966 -
A London-based multimedia artist of Iraqi-Irish descent.
Jananne Al-Ani was born in 1966, in Iraq. She is primarily a video and video installation artist and emigrated from northern Iraq to England in 1980, where she trained at the Byam Shaw School of Art and Royal College of Art. Her early works were photographic but in the late 1990s she began to work most frequently in video. Al-Ani's work is primarily concerned with the complexities, ambiguities, and power relationships that are part of the processes of cultural contact and mixing. She often draws on her own experience of moving from Iraq to Britain, and of being the child of an Iraqi father and Irish mother to explore these issues, but she intentionally disrupts the easy correlation between her work and her background. Al-Ani has done a series of pieces dealing with the male gaze and the female body, and the orientalist Western male gaze of Middle Eastern women in particular. A number of pieces that both confront and entice voyeurism exemplify her work on this theme, as do the works that deal with the politics and practices of veiling. Her video installations on the veil are part of the larger body of work being produced by women artists from the Middle East examining the complicated issue of the veil from their own diverse perspectives. Another theme running through Al-Ani's works is the relationship between memory and narrative, a topic motivated by her personal history. Like several other prominent artists of Arab descent, Al-Ani's artistic exploration of her mixed and diasporic identity was initially motivated by the 1991 Gulf War, which brought into focus the interwoven personal and political aspects of life in exile. Al-Ani is particularly interested in the ambiguities of personal histories as constructed through narratives of memory, and has created a series of works involving family members that explore the multiple layers of experience and identity. She has exhibited widely in the United States and Europe and is also active in curatorial projects.
Bibliography
Bailey, David A., and Tawadros, Gilane, eds. Veil: Veiling, Representation, and Contemporary Art. Cambridge, MA: MIT Blaisdell; London: INIVA, 2003.
Tohme, Christine, and Abu Rayyan, Mona, eds. Home Works: A Forum on Cultural Practices in the Region - Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria. Beirut: Ashkal Alwan, 2003.
— JESSICA WINEGAR
