Mai Abusalih

RESEARCH


  1. Khartoum Podcast - خرطوم بودكاست
  2. Memorialization within the Deathscapes of Khartoum
  3. After Memory: Essays on the Sudanese Archive


ARCHITECTURE


  1. #RIP: Encoding Memory
  2. Dismantle| Reassemble
  3. Resistance at the Dique do Tororro
  4. CTC Engineering: Office Building
  5. CTC Engineering: Showroom


INFORMATION


Mark

Khartoum Podcast



Khartoum Podcast is a series of episodes that explore the city of Khartoum from different social, cultural, and political aspects through the lenses of specialists, urbanists, artists, and other inhabitants of the city. The podcast discusses the relationship between people, culture, and history to get a better understanding of how Khartoum is continuously being shaped every day. 

This podcast was produced by the Urban Episode (Studio Urban) for Sudan Moves project with Mai Abusalih as Head Researcher and one of the hosts. The project was made possible with the support of Goethe-Institut Sudan.

Studio Urban Team: Zainab Gaafar, Almuzn Mohamed Elhassan, Leena Shebeika, Azza Mohamed.

Music: Zain Records

Audio Mixing: Tariq Suliman

Script Co-writer: Husam Hilali

Khartoum Podcast was broadcast by the local Sudanese radio station, Hala96fm︎︎︎.

website: https://artxdialogue.org/podcast/

Full episodes available on all streaming platforms.

Episodes researched and presented by Mai:

Omdurman Through The Times
Omdurman is known for it’s image as the national capital and Sudan’s microcosm - an image that is closely associated with a long history of cultural, social, and political movements rooted in the city. The episode questions poses the questions: How did the image of Omdurman form? And has this image been imagined or was it the product of real processes that remained a part of the city’s history?

Deathscapes
How does death relate to space?

What can be considered as a “space” of death?

In this episode we explore the relationship of Khartoum with death, whether it be through places of burial or places of memorialization and we consider how spaces of death can act as physical archives that have the ability to preserve the history of the city. This journey will allow us to explore the history of qubbas of sufi saints and their relationship to the city’s socio-political landscape, the history cemeteries in Khartoum and finally monuments and memorials and the tensions surrounding memorialization in Sudan.

We discuss how these “deathscapes” have intersected with spaces of the living and become contested sites where the socio-political relations in the city playout.

Accompanying essay:
Memorialization within the Deathscapes of Khartoum
https://artxdialogue.org/deathscapes/

Other episodes:
Sound of Khartoum

This episode gives an overview of the alternative music scene in Khartoum within the past 60 years by discussing the diverse influences leading to the emergence and development of Jazz, Zannig, and Rap musical genres in the city. We review the intersections of some of these genres with social class and politics in Khartoum and how they’ve become cultural products that were minimally represented and were not allowed to be fully legitimized by official media channels and institutions, thus they’ve historically been marginalized.

Produced in collaboration with Alrassa.
Right to Public Spaces

This episode presents an overview of public spaces in Khartoum city from its riverfronts, open spaces, to ‘Almasateb’ on the street scale. Through this cross-scalar exploration of the city, we discuss the various influencers that led to the loss of significant public spaces and played a role in their historical erasure, particularly those that have witnessed momentous events that shaped the collective memory of Khartoum and its residents throughout the past century. 

Art Revolution

This episode discusses the relationship of art with politics by reflecting on the art movements that developed in post-colonial Sudan to the state of art and artists today after the December revolution. We discuss how this complex relationship to authority has been at times a vehicle for art production and at other times has undermined the freedom and space for art in Sudan.

Mark