Vagner Mendonça-Whitehead Microgrant

I am excited to have been chosen as a recipient of a 2023 Vagner Mendonça-Whitehead Microgrant, including an online exhibition of my piece Cranes and Cube (2019)

The 2023 Vagner Mendonça-Whitehead Microgrant Fund is proud to present its chosen artists, Wednesday Kim, Asma Kazmi and Chanee Choi. These three artists represent a wave of artists bringing a new perspective to new media art, embracing what artist/curator Marisa Olson calls post-internet art, that is, work that is no longer fascinated by the novelty of the internet and technology itself but rather exists surrounded by it. Abandoning the trappings of Techno-Fetishism and instead embracing a wider human experience, from mental health to the clash of capitalism and religion to the effects of hate crimes on a community, these works immerse us into the fears and hopes of its creators.

By supporting this diversity of voices, the New Media Caucus hopes to expand the field and make it a richer, more diverse space, where voices not often heard in the wider context can thrive.

This grant includes an online virtual exhibition presented by New Media Caucus:

Cranes and Cube, 2019. Interactive virtual reality installation with text and sound, 2019.

Cranes and Cube (2019)
Asma Kazmi

In Cranes and Cube, Asma Kazmi confronts the reality of Saudi Arabia's rampant capitalism in and around Mecca, especially in proximity to the Kaaba. It is expected of every Muslim to visit Mecca and circle the Kaaba seven times counterclockwise in a rite known as the Tawaf, which marks the completion of the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages. In Cranes and Cube, the artist recreates the ritual of the Tawaf highlighting the space where religiosity and capitalism collide, as a forest of hand drawn construction cranes and surrealist architectural forms revolve around the viewer.

As part of an effort to accommodate the large number of pilgrims to the site, Mecca has seen the destruction of multiple important historic locations to make way for massive luxury developments, including upscale hotels and condominium towers, restaurants, shopping centers and spas. All this was built by South Asian and African immigrants under brutal working conditions. Kazmi's work illustrates the contrast between the conditions lived by those in the luxury developments and those of the migrant workers, a disparity which clashes with the values of Islam.