Curator Laura Metzler sits in conversation with Zara Mahmood and Tor Seidel about everyday material and their practices in the context of the ongoing exhibition Tashweesh: Material Noise carried out at Maraya Art Centre in collaboration with UAE Unlimited. This talk is part of the Jameel’s ‘Conversations on Practice’ series of artist-led presentations.

Zara Mahmood is a Dubai-based artist who is currently working as an Adjunct Professor in Visual Communication at the American University in Dubai and at Zayed University. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from the National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore, and after acquiring her undergraduate degree, pursued a Master’s programme in Fine Art at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) in the UK with a focus on Painting. Her work has been shown in both solo and group exhibitions in Beirut, Dubai, Karachi, Lahore, Madrid and Philadelphia, and she has participated in Art Dubai’s Campus 5.0. She is also a member of Dubai-based alternative rock/electronica band Sail Into Night.

Tor Seidel is a German artist who pursued an MA in Art, Philosophy and Archeology at the Freie Universität Berlin. He has formerly worked as commercial photographer for clients ranging from Zaha Hadid to Vogue, and as art director for European art, architecture, fashion and archeology magazines. Currently, Tor is lecturer in the Fine Arts programme at the University of Sharjah and is represented by The Empty Quarter Gallery in Dubai. He has published two books on the Emirates, The Dubai, (Hatje-Cantz 2014), and Mannequins, (Kerber 2018), and has exhibited in London, Miami, Berlin, and Venice. In 2016, Tor received the Syngenta Photo Award.