Two Meetings and a Funeral

Overview


7 June–17 September 2017
documenta 14, Kassel

At documenta 14, Naeem Mohaiemen premieres two interrelated moving image works co-commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation. In addition to the single-channel work Tripoli Cancelled (2017) on view in Athens, Mohaiemen presents Two Meetings and a Funeral (2017) in Kassel. The three-channel video installation explores Bangladesh’s historical pivot from the socialist perspective of the 1973 Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) meeting in Algeria to its ideological counterpoint, the emergence of a strong Islamic perspective at the 1974 Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) meeting in Lahore. Centred on Bangladesh’s navigation of these two historic meetings, as well as its fight for United Nations recognition (vetoed by China, acting as a proxy for Pakistan), the project considers the erosion of the idea of the Third World as a potential space for decolonialism, liberation theology and socialism. In particular, it looks at how a transnational Islamic ‘ummah’ concept was used against socialist forces.

Commissioned by documenta 14. Co-commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation and Ford Foundation.