MUSEUM OF PRESERVING CITY – KAUPUNGIN SÄILYTTÄMISEN MUSEO
Curator Abir Boukhari
Born in Syria, Abir Boukhari is a curator who lives and works in Stockholm. “Museum of Preserving City” is a project that aims to build an archive based on artworks that record the history, recent past, present and vision about the future of the City of Damascus. All participating artists have experienced the city personally. Some are still living there, while others have left or are about to leave. They are either citizens of Damascus or have explored it as visitors. The project is an attempt to build a conceptual archive of Damascus as the oldest capital city in the world – while also establishing an idea of the current situation in the city. The exhibition mounted in the Project Room at the Pori Art Museum will consist of some new works as well as works selected from the archive that open up a vision of the current situation in Syria, which goes beyond media imageries
Abir Boukhari is the director, curator and co-founder of AllArtNow, the first contemporary art space in Syria, founded in Damascus in 2005. Previously, Boukhari was the artistic director for Living Spaces Festival for Contemporary Arts, the artistic director of Studio (an informal school for contemporary arts in Syria) and the co-founder of Boukhari House for Artist Residencies and the culture center Maktab Creative Zone, all of which were located in Damascus. She augmented her training through internships at the Tate Modern (London) and Hamburger Bahnhof Museum (Germany). Abir Boukhari graduated from the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design Konstfack in Stockholm, where she was awarded the prestigious Ulla Fröberg-Cramér stipend for excellent success in studies.
Currently in exile in Sweden, Boukhari continues to create platforms for art and artists through her curatorial work and her current global “Nomadism”, as well as the many exhibitions she has curated through Europe and the Middle East for Syrians and international artists, exploring the effects of displacement on individuals and cultures.