The painter and printmaker Mohammad Omar Khalil speaks with writer Maya Jaggi about why he works only in black and white, making work as an embodied process, and surviving as a working artist in New York.

In 2020 the Mosaic Rooms hosted ‘Homeland Under My Nails’, an exhibition of Khalil’s prints from 1964 to now. It explores the experimentation and international sensibility of the artist, who trained in Sudan and Italy, and has lived in New York and Asilah since the early 1970s. Curated by Abed AlKadiri, the exhibition showed works from throughout Khalil’s career, some displayed for the first time.

“In black, you meditate more than in colour. Colour is fascinating, attractive, I think of it as superficial. Black and white draws you in.”

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Abdellatif Laâbi and translator André Naffis-Sahely read from Laâbi’s novel The Bottom of the Jar in its first English translation, and Laâbi reads a list of advice, wisdoms and aspirations for new writers.

The Bottom of the Jar recreates Laâbi’s childhood city of Fez, Morocco, through Nanoussa, his semi-fictional kindred spirit. It holds the energy of the final days of the French occupation, and the path to liberation.

More lectures, readings, and conversations from the Mosaic Rooms’ archive will be broadcast every month on Radio AlHara. Over the next few months, we’re digging through our recorded archives and sharing some of the voices that have echoed inside our rooms. As we step into a short pause and a moment of transformation, we want to celebrate all that has come before this next chapter. We stay connected on the airwaves.

Mixing by Justin Tam

Graphic design by Rand Raid

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Human rights lawyer Raji Sourani delivers a powerful Edward W. Said London Lecture, where he confronts the reality of the ongoing Gaza genocide and Israel's assault on international law and Palestinians. Sourani fled Gaza in late 2023 when his home was bombed, and now lives with his family in Cairo. Sourani is a member of the South African delegation on the genocide case against Israel before the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ).

More lectures, readings, and conversations from the Mosaic Rooms’ archive will be broadcast every month on Radio AlHara. Over the next few months, we’re digging through our recorded archives and sharing some of the voices that have echoed inside our rooms. As we step into a short pause and a moment of transformation, we want to celebrate all that has come before this next chapter. We stay connected on the airwaves.

Mixing by Justin Tam

Graphic design by Rand Raid

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.