Born
in Iraq, Jananne Al-Ani currently lives and works in London. She
studied Fine Art at the Byam Shaw School of Art and graduated with
an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art in 1997. Al-Ani's
early work explores the construction of beauty and the representation
of the body in Western art and her work continues to be influenced
by her interest in the fetishised female form in Orientalist painting
and photography.
Memory
and word games act as a starting point for many of Al-Ani's recent
video works. In 'A Loving Man' (1996-9), five women play a memory
game, the components of which are phrases based upon each woman's
relationship with the 'loving man' of the title. 'A Loving Man'
was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum and subsequently shown
in East International 2000 where Al-Ani was the joint winner of
the East Award. The same focus on the construction of narrative
and the idea of language as a source of both knowledge and misunderstanding
is apparent in 'She Said' (2000). Commissioned by the New Art Gallery
Walsall, this five screen video installation is distinguished by
Al-Ani's characteristically concise and minimal formal language.
In
addition to her work as Curatorial Assistant for Autograph, the
Association of Black Photographers, Al-Ani has been active in organising
exhibitions and events independently. She recently co-curated the
show 'Fair Play' with the artist Frances Kearney at Danielle Arnaud
Contemporary Art and she is currently working, in collaboration
with Autograph, the African and Asian Visual Artists Archive and
the Institute of International Visual Arts, towards the production
of a major exhibition of contemporary works concerned with the veil.
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