Jananne Al-Ani

Al-Ani was born in Kirkuk, Iraq in 1966 to an Iraqi father and Irish mother. 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. She is currently Senior Research Fellow at the University of the Arts London, and lives and works in London.[1]

Working with photography, film and video, Al-Ani has an ongoing interest in the documentary tradition, through intimate recollections and more official accounts. Her work also engages with the landscape of the Middle East, its archaeology and its visual representation.

Summarising her work in an interview with curator and critic Nat Muller, Al-Ani said: "I have a longstanding interest in the representation of the body. The earliest works I exhibited were concerned with the way women's bodies have been represented throughout the history of western painting. In advance of the development of photography and film, the shifting ideals of feminine beauty were clearly mapped out in the work of artists. However, the media coverage of the 1991 Gulf War, which focused on aerial and satellite images of a depopulated, barren landscape, had a major impact on my work. What followed was a reassessment on my part of the work of Orientalist painters and the way in which fantasies about the body and the landscape of the Middle East were constructed in their works. I began to see the body itself as a contested territory and during the 90s produced a series of works that attempted to counter the European obsession with uncovering and exposing the bodies of veiled women. More recently, with the Aesthetics of Disappearance project, I've attempted to re-occupy that space so, while the presence of the body is implied rather than explicit, the traces of human activity in the landscape are clear to see."[2]

• 1996: John Kobal Photographic Portrait Award.[3]
• 2000: East International Award.[4]
• 2011: Abraaj Capital Art Prize.[5]

Jananne Al-Ani's work is held in the following collections:

• Tate, London.[15]
• Victoria and Albert Museum, London.[16]
• Arts Council Collection.[17]
• Pompidou Centre, Paris.[18]
• Louis Vuitton Foundation for Creation, Paris.
• Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.[19]
• Museum Moderner Kunst (mumok), Vienna.[20]
• Darat al-Funun – The Khalid Shoman Foundation, Amman, Jordan.[21]

• Culture of Iraq
• Islamic art
• List of Iraqi artists
• List of Iraqi women artists

Lloyd, Fran (1999). Contemporary Arab Women's Art: Dialogues of the present. London: WAL Women's Art Library. ISBN 1860645992.

• Technologies of History: Jananne Al-Ani in conversation with Nat Muller, Ibraaz online (2014)
• Jananne Al-Ani in conversation with Rachel Withers, RES 7 Art World / World Art June (2011)
• Marcus Verhagen commissioned text for LUX online (2004)
• Jananne Al-Ani monograph, Film & Video Umbrella (2005)

• Home Works. Christine Tohme and Mona Abu Rayyan, Ashkal Alwan, 2003.
• Jananne Al-Ani. Film and Video Umbrella, 2005.[1]
• Contemporary British Women Artists: in their own words. Rebecca Fortnum, I.B.Tauris, 2007.
• Oil and Sugar: Contemporary Art and Islamic Culture. Glenn Lowry, ICC at the ROM, 2009.
• Footnote to a Project*. Sharmini Pereira, Abraaj Capital Art Prize, 2011.
• Site-Writing: The Architecture of Art Criticism. Jane Rendell, I.B.Tauris, 2011.
• In Ramallah, Running. Guy Mannes-Abbott and Samar Martha, Black Dog, 2012.