cut the conflict by noma bar (interview)

cut the conflict by noma bar – top image: US/ syria

noma bar will present a new exhibition at the rook and raven gallery from 22nd november to 21st december 2013.

using the ‘cut it out’ machine, noma will cut out silhouettes related to various conflicts across the world from different materials such as flags, letters, photos, newspapers, fabric, that have been donated by people living in the conflicting countries.

noma with the ‘cut it out dog’ machine

designboom spoke to noma about the exhibition:

DB: how did you come to choose the theme of the new exhibition?
NB: it started with a conversation with a london-based iranian guy at my local cafe last year. it was a perfectly normal conversation between two men but one which could never happen if we both lived in our own countries (I was born in israel). this got me thinking that I would love to create a project or an art piece that celebrated the notion of international dialogue between people from conflicted countries.

israel / palestine

DB: how does the exhibition build upon your previous body of work?
NB: the images in this new show have all been constructed with the same thought process that I’ve been developing for years. I’m always interested in creating powerfully reductive artworks that manipulate both positive and negative space to reveal multiple meanings.

all the imagery in cut the conflict has been created using the dog-shaped die-cutting machine that I developed for my previous ‘cut it out’ exhibition at outline editions in 2011. developing the die-cutting machine gave me the opportunity to create a series of hybrid cut out artworks using a range of materials from paper and sponge through to rubber and plastic. that show (which has toured around the world) also gave me the opportunity to collaborate with people because they could come to the gallery and use the machine to create their own ‘cut out artworks’ with their own materials and a range of 36 different colored papers provided by GF smith for the project.

cut the conflict takes this idea one step further, opening up the possibilities for image making collaboration on a global scale. I invited people in warring countries around the world to submit materials to be used in the creation of these new artworks. the result is a set of unique, one-off pieces that were each cut with one rule – that each work contains materials that have been submitted from people that live in conflicting countries.

india / pakistan

DB: please could you tell us more about these submitted materials you will use?
NB: I’m carefully selecting the materials for each artwork as the medium will form an important part of the message of each piece. actually for people to send stuff to a project like this is quite a risky thing. for example, it’s a big deal for a person in palestine to send a flag and to know that it could possibly be mounted next to an israeli flag and vice versa. by submitting such materials, people were essentially demonstrating that they were willing to take a risk, in order to contribute and put their name to my peace project. how I marry these materials in the images is a curatorial side to creating these pieces that’s totally new to my work – it adds new layers, both literally and in terms of each images meaning.

USA / iran

USA / cuba

USA / iran

DB: what to you hope people take from the exhibition?
NB: a sense that people from conflicted countries can reach out and communicate with each other. what I’m trying to achieve is a series of metaphorical handshakes between people who would culturally consider each other to be enemies, to show that dialogue can happen, that there’s hope beyond conflict.

more…
noma bar will be onsite at rook and raven gallery to talk about his background, his creative process, negative and positive space within his work and his latest project ‘cut the conflict’. visitors will also have the opportunity to watch him creating artworks with his giant art-making machine .

there will be two talks in the coming weeks:
30th november, 2 – 3.30pm
7th december, 2 – 3.30pm

you can reserve a place at the talks via the mail address on this page.