GHAITH KWEEN QOUTAINY
Ghaith Kween Qoutainy (aka Kween) is a Syrian–Dutch composer, sound artist, performer, cultural curator/programmer, and at times a producer.
Across mediums and domains, their work weaves through the workings of spaces: socio-political space, cultural space, institutional space, meaning-making space, public and private space, and their ontologies. These are examined through an extensive body of research: academic, empirical, and artistic.
Their practice ultimately sets sail voyaging the (re)making of felt yet nontangible spaces — affective, historical, sonified, and in constant flux. Though their formal training lies in sound, their work is not bound to a single medium. Over time, they have worked with sound and music, video, and performance.
In their cultural programming their focus on curating spaces for those on the margins and intersections. Not far from the nature of their artistic work, their curation upholds an ideology of critical-zones: spaces that do not rely on exclusivity to provide safety, but rather cultivate controlled settings for the benefit of a collectivity.
Among their works and collaborations: their own 34-minute theatre solo Lam7a / La7dha / Wa 3boor; the sound score for Non-User Friendly by Sondi; the composition for Good Job Good Boy || by Eloy Cruz del Pedro; the deconstruction, reconstruction, and recording of a piano for Gyo Wyex’s solo exhibition at Joan LA; and the original composition and live performance of Rock to Jolt [ ] Stagger to Ash by Alexis Blake (Prix de Rome 2021).
As a programmer and cultural curator, together with Noise Diva (Yara Said), they are the initiator and programmer of Syrian Tonalities, an Amsterdam-based event series platforming Syrian artistic practices across performance, music, film, and visual arts; ISSUE Magazine, a queer collective producing an annual publication and cultural events; and Pam Wide Open, the cultural event platform of Bar Pamela.