Naeem Mohaiemen

Naeem Mohaiemen, Two Meetings and a Funeral, 2017. Installation view at St George's Hall, Liverpool Biennial 2018. Photo: Thierry Bal

Naeem Mohaiemen, Two Meetings and a Funeral (film still), 2017. Courtesy the artist

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Naeem Mohaiemen (b. 1969, London, UK) combines films and essays to examine the collective memory of failed utopias, framed by Third World Internationalism and World Socialism. Although misrecognition of allies is a persistent theme, hope for a future alliance of the global left against silos of race and religion is the ideological basis for Mohaiemen's work. 

In Dhaka, he was a member of Drishtipat and Alal O Dulal, and in New York, of South Asian Magazine for Action & Reflection, 3rd i South Asian Film, and Visible Collective. Naeem also co-edited System Error: War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (Papesse) and Chittagong Hill Tracts in the Blind Spot of Bangladesh Nationalism (Drishtipat).

Naeem Mohaiemen’s three-channel film Two Meetings and a Funeral (2017) is screened in the courtroom at St George’s Hall. The work revisits the Cold War-era power struggles between the political coalitions of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The project navigates alliances of convenience made during Bangladesh’s fight for UN recognition, as well as parallel decolonisation struggles in Palestine-Israel, the Portuguese colonies and South Africa.

Two Meetings and a Funeral was commissioned by documenta 14, co-commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation and Ford Foundation (Just Films) and was supported by Arts Council England; Tensta Konsthall, Sweden; Bengal Foundation, Bangladesh; with additional support by Tate Films/Tate Modern, London, UK.

Naeem Mohaiemen at Liverpool Biennial 2018

Two Meetings and a Funeral, 2017
Three channel digital video installation, 85 min
Exhibited at St George's Hall