Hammam Aldouri, adjunct assistant professor, teaches art history, theory and criticism to Photography & Digital Arts students and to Graduate Studies students.
"I am currently working on a book project that tries to construct a critical concept of art practice. The premise of the project is an ostensibly simple question: what is art practice – or, more precisely put, what do we mean by 'practice' when we speak of art practice? In our contemporary context, we often take the expression 'art practice' for granted, which sometimes leads to unquestioned assumptions about what practice is, what it means and what it does. I find this lack of questioning odd, not least because we did not always refer to artistic activity in terms of practice. I think what is distinctive about some artistic endeavors of the last 200 years is that art is increasingly connected to other non-artistic ways of acting and doing. Sometimes these other modes of activity can be as banal as shopping or cleaning and sometimes they can be broad and ambitious like organizing a festival or protest. It is this connection between an activity that has no clear specificity and activities that do that I think can be called 'art practice.'
"Outside interests and hobbies?! All I do is work! My friends like to remind me that I always get stressed out when I try to relax or redirect my energies to pastimes.
"I very recently became a father. The picture you see is me trying to create the illusion that I know what I am doing when it comes to matters of parenting."
