GAZA FUNDRAISER FREE PALESTINE PRESS RELEASE

GAZA FUNDRAISER FREE PALESTINE, artshow launch Friday 1st August 2014 at 6pm, at Samia Gallery, 19 Henriques Street, London E1 1NB. Artshow starts with exhibiting artwork from 29 artists. Artworks presented in various mediums: sculptures, prints, drawings, paintings, videos and performances. Gaza fundraiser event goes on till Sunday 31st August 2014, through artshow duration more artwork will be exhibited and more performances will take place. Money raised will go to: individuals in need in Gaza, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Stop the War Coalition and Medication Aid For Palestinians.

LYDIA COHEN 

We’re not putting our energy into creating an anti-Israel event. This is a humanitarian cause. Over 600 people are dead.

I’m of Israeli decent – my father is an Israeli Jew. I wanted to know the truth earlier this year I went to the West Bank. For me the best way to understand something is to see for oneself. People had got in touch with me through Facebook, one in particular, Abed, who was from Gaza now living in exile in Egypt as it was too dangerous for him to stay in Gaza. He left his family there. During the latest attack he had been told his family’s home had been bombed and they had fled. He is now not able to get hold of them not knowing whether they are alive or dead. This kind of situation is not something we can’t even comprehend. I felt helpless – what could we do? It was Abed feeling that they are fighting this alone with no support that we thought of creating a dialogue between people in Gaza and the gallery.

This isn’t just a charity event passing funds onto a faceless charity, it’s us directly helping, showing we are here and we care for the cause and want to support these people in rebuilding their lives. For us this is about support.

www.lydiacohen.com

SAMIA MALIK 

I've not been to Palestine or Israel. I support various humanitarian issues, Palestine has been one of them for many years. I'm a Muslim, and I'm not anti Israel. I'm against Israel's criminal attacks on Palestine, who has no: army, air force and navy. 

I cannot explain the pain every time I hear another persons killed in Palestine. I don't have the words to describe, to not truly understand the pain suffered by people killed or injured in this massacre, and the pain suffered by their families. Only thing I can seem to do is: pray, share news, and go to demonstrations. But none of this seems to be enough, I feel like a failure each time I hear a child, women and man is killed. 

Thank you Lydia Cohen, for coming up with idea to fund raise in gallery for Palestinians. I'm familiar with several good charities raising funds for Palestine, to end a 66 year siege by Israel, who also are supported by other powerful governments such as UK. Palestine can sure do with another fund raise event. I sincerely hope that every penny raised will go towards freeing Palestine forever.

ARTIST LIST:

Phil America, Shaheen Ahmed, Ingrid Berthon-Moine, Vanya Balogh, Nadia Ballen, Frank Black, Bill Cilbery, Lydia Cohen, ihtgw Continent, Ashley Scott Fitzgerald, Glenn Fitzy Fitzpatrick, Laura Gabe, Eldar Gantz, Maria Teresa Gavazzi, Max Gimson, Nikki Hare, Dannielle Hodson , Marie Holyhead, Hülya Küpçüoğlu, Andie Macario, Julia Maddison, Paul Matosic, Katie McDougall, Safeena Razzaq, Rebecca Scott, Megan Schwartz, Martin Sexton, Barrie Sharpe , Andrew Stys, Roman Taher, David Turner,

Mark Woods, Hassan Vawda, Markrobla 

FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE: https://www.facebook.com/events/1474714002767886/?ref=br_tf

GAZA FUND RAISER FREE PALESTINE WITH LYDIA COHEN

We're organising in gallery Gaza fund raiser with Lydia Cohen.

We're looking for: ideas, artwork, contribution, performances etc. Artwork submission sizes: A5, A4, A3. A2. Small scale sculptures can also be submitted. Please email: samiagallery@gmail.com. 

Fund raiser launch date Thursday 31st July 2014, event runs for a month. Artwork submission deadline for launch Sunday 27th July 2014. More artwork can be submitted till Friday 15th August 2014.

Money raised will be donated to indigenous civilians of Gaza. The aim is not to send funds we raise directly to charities, and organisations but directly to people in need. So we are in touch with their progress and developments.

FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1474714002767886/?ref=notif&notif_t=plan_edited

WE'RE STOCKING HYSTERIA MAGAZINE

FREEDOM ARTWORK SUBMISSION CALL

FREEDOM Art Show starts at Samia Gallery in September 2014 (exact date to confirmed). Please submit art work size A5/ A4 /A3, we're open to video and sculptures. Please email artwork to samiagallery@gmail.com. Artwork call goes on till late August 2014, and no costs to submit artwork. 

FACEBOOK EVENT: https://www.facebook.com/events/332770553538603/?context=create&ref=2&ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming&source=49

SAY NO TO FACISM ARTWORK SUBMISSION CALL

SAY NO TO FASCISM Art Show starts at Samia Gallery in September 2014 (exact date to confirmed). Please submit art work size A5/ A4 /A3, we're open to video and sculptures. Please email artwork to samiagallery@gmail.com. Artwork call goes on till late August 2014, and no costs to submit artwork. 

FABOOK EVENT PAGE: https://www.facebook.com/events/323881897777062/?context=create&ref=1&source=49

Private View, curated by Li Li Ren

Private View

1^st July - 18^th July 2014

Private View: 30th June 2014, 6-9pm

Curated by Li Li Ren

Artists including: Stephen Hall, Nu Li, Lou-Atessa Marcellin, Li Li Ren, Sam Tierney, Julia Varela

At: Samia Gallery, 19 Henriques Street E1 1NB 

In our time everybody feels himself under surveillance. We know that we are exhibited, exposed to the gaze of the others. Our private sphere is permanently invaded, controlled by the state and private institutions. And the visual regime under which we live is an asymmetrical one: we do not see the others watching us because the means of visual control are mostly hidden from our eyes. Thus, this regime is different from the panoptical regime as it was described by Foucault, e.g. as the regime under which we could see the subject of power that saw us. The question is: how to react to this asymmetrical visual regime? One way is to defend one’s private space. But this strategy is obviously ineffective. The second way is to manipulate one’s own image in a conscious way – to create this image by showing more than the other wants to see, and to invent what one shows.

  --------- Boris Groys

The group exhibition Private View  explores whether privacy as we used to understand it has ceased to exist in today's world of total surveillance. 

Groys' analysis proposes an interesting alternative to the protection of privacy namely a contrived self-revelation. Confessional culture from reality tv to social media sees users competing for the traumatic exposure of the disgusting private revelation - confirming our worst suspicions. If our own private lives are not interesting enough we had better spice them up to be worthy of consumption, resulting in a proliferation of self exaggeration,  self dramatisation and acting out.

Private view stands at the shifting boundary between private and public, toying with the real or the manufactured/ manipulated. It questions the authenticity of our so called private lives, presents us with often incompatible or self contradictory privacies simultaneously.

Facebook event page: 
https://www.facebook.com/events/658932760850302/?context=create&ref=2&ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming&source=49

THE KIDS

The Kids Art Show at Samia Gallery May 2014. Many thanks to Vanya Balogh for coming up with the idea and organaising it all. Huge thanks to all 60 + kids age up to 10 years for participating in artshow, and thank you to all parents too.