Rheim Alkadhi

Rheim Alkadhi (Arabic: ريم القاضي) (born 1973) is an interdisciplinary artist who lives and works in Beirut.^[1][2]

The daughter of an Iraqi father and an American mother, she was born in Buffalo, New York. The family lived in Iraq during the 1970s but returned to the United States at the start of the Iran–Iraq War. Alkadhi earned a BFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1994 and a MFA from the University of California, Irvine in 1999.^[2]

In 2015, she was a fellow in visual art at Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart.^[3] In 2014 she developed the project "Communications From the Field of Contact (Each Hair Is a Tongue)"^[4] during her residency at the Sharjah Art Foundation. In 2012 she was a temporary member of a household of women in the West Bank village of Jam'ain in Palestine, where she developed her project "Collective Knotting Together of Hairs"^[5] with the local Women's Association, with Riwaq Center for Architectural Conservation in Ramallah, and with Al-Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art in Jerusalem. In 2012 she was artist in residence at Darat al Funun in Amman via the initiative of Rijin Sahakian and Sada for Contemporary Iraqi Art.^[6] In 2011 she was in residence at Dar al Ma'mun in Tassoultante and then independent of institutional assistance in the village of Tahannaout, Al Haouz Province. In 2010 she spent one month in Itaewon, Seoul with the artist-run space DoBaeBacsa.^[7] In 2010 she was artist in residence at PØST in Los Angeles.^[8]

In 2009 she had a residency at Townhouse Gallery^[9] in Cairo, where she gathered material for the limited edition artist book "Destroyed in Baghdad / Repaired in Cairo: A Viewer's Manual to a Temporary Art Practice in the Auto Mechanics District". In 2009 she printed the limited edition artist book "Post Cards From the Clandestine Troupe".^[10]

Her work was shown at the 12th Sharjah Biennial, at the New Museum,^[11] in the 2012 Jerusalem Show,^[12] at dOCUMENTA(13),^[13] and in the 2010 Cairo Biennial.

In 2010 she received a grant from Art Matters ^[14] and the Center for Cultural Innovation.^[15] In 2009 she was awarded a Mid-Career Artist Fellowship from the California Community Foundation.^[16] In 2008 she received a grant from the Arab Fund for Art and Culture.^[17] In 1990 she received an award from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts and from 1990 to 1994 the Musicfest award for young artists.

Alkadhi works under visual conditions that include digital media, photography, text-based initiatives, social matter in public space, and intimate person-to-person interaction.^[2][18]

References