Mina Image Centre

Press Mentions /

“On the Human Comedy” delves into an exploration, intertwining Dante Alighieri’s timeless narrative “The Divine Comedy” with our contemporary world. The title’s irony, referencing comedy’s traditional definition—a narrative leading to a happy resolution—juxtaposed against today’s grim reality, challenges our perceptions and prompts a reevaluation of conventional narratives and existential paradoxes.

 

Depictions of the Afterlife, recurrent in ancient texts and contemporary literature, resurface during crises. The exhibition features Salvador Dalí’s illustrations of “The Divine Comedy” alongside works by Ayman Baalbaki, Chaza Charaeddine, Abdulrahman Katanani, Rabih Mroué, and Rayyane Tabet. Together, these artworks bear witness to humanity’s moments of defeat.

 

Amidst this exploration, we recognize the privilege of engaging in such reflection from positions of safety, denied to many. It serves as a reminder of our collective responsibility to confront the harsh realities of our world and advocate for those who lack such privilege.

 

Fifty nine original woodprints from copy n: 55 of Dali’s Divine Comedy are on display, courtesy of collector Ghassan Al Maleh. This project is made possible thanks to the support of the Embassy of Spain in Lebanon and the Embassy of Italy in Lebanon.

Curated By Manal Khader.

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You are invited to the opening of

Danse MacabreFrom Urban Perils to Raving Revelry

on February 8 from 6 – 9 pm

By  Abed Al Kadiri

We are thrilled to announce “Danse Macabre – From Urban Perils to Raving Revelry,” a multimedia exhibition by Abed Al Kadiri presenting a new body of work created between 2020 and 2023.
This exhibition, an ambassador project by the Beirut Museum of Art (BeMA), unfolds at Mina Image Centre on the 8th of February 2024, with a series of interventions, a dance performance, a panel discussion and workshops.

The exhibition delves into the intricate relationships between dance, trauma, and belonging in contemporary Lebanon. Far from being a stark contrast to the political turmoil and haunting legacies of death since the civil war. Al Kadiri presents these elements as integral responses, serving as acts of survival and healing—a collaborative practice in the face of the nation’s societal and institutional collapse.

Drawing inspiration from the medieval tradition of Danse Macabre, where Death led dancers—both living and dead—in grim celebrations, Al Kadiri’s canvases visually metaphorise the euphoric space of dance’s disconnection from reality. However, this disconnection is continually tethered to the traumatized body and Beirut’s urbanity. The project sheds light on the emergence of the dance macabre during the past cycle of crises Beirut went through, turning the nocturnal and raving scene into an unexpected sanctuary for new communal safe space and collectivity.
In a multimedia showcase featuring six large canvases, a video animation, and two performances, Al-Kadiri explores the underground scene as both a refuge from and an expression of trauma and loss. The works intertwine the artist’s personal journey between Beirut and Paris. “Danse Macabre” opens a window onto a vast spectrum of emotional and psychological experiences, from despair and sorrow to defiance, escapism, solidarity, and deep dissociative states of Lebanon’s recent history, reflecting on the nation’s socio-political paralysis that has depleted the nation. The compounding of crises: a stumped revolution, an incarcerating economic collapse, a pandemic, and the largest non-nuclear explosion of this century have plunged the country into free fall.

The project relies on artistic collaboration inviting both Victor van Wetten and Jad Atoui for the realisation of an animated video and sound installation room. A dance performance will take place at the opening reception using Al Kadiri in-situ mural, as a platform to engage physical movement, and the act of erasing, featuring Lebanese contemporary dancer Jimmy Bechara who uses his body as a collateral form of expression suggesting a new representation of the canvas.

A publication designed by Lynne Zakhour will be released with a conversation between Abed Al Kadiri and Marc Mouarkech and enriching interventions by Juliana Khalaf Salhab – Co-Director of the Beirut Museum of Art (BeMA), Clemence Cottard – Artistic Director of the Beirut Museum of Art (BeMA), Joanna Andraos – Clinical Psychologist-Psychoanalyst / Visual Artist, and George Tabatadze – Musician and Researcher.
A rave performance in collaboration with Frequent Defect will be announced at a later stage, inviting the public to dance and create a new work with the artist and to be added to the exhibition.

The exhibition remains from February 8 to March 21, 2024

Project Director: Marc Mouarkech
An ambassador project by the Beirut Museum of Art (BeMA).
In Collaboration with Mina Image Centre, Galerie Tanit – Beyrouth / Munich, and Frequent Defect.

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The Bunker, The Barracks, and The Base

Towards the end of the Second World War, French and British forces fortified the Khiam Marjayoun valley and its surrounding villages in the South of Lebanon through a comprehensive military scheme. At the core of this scheme were three structures – a hospital bunker, an airbase, and a military barracks. After the retreat of the allies came the establishment of the State of Israel, and the political turmoil that would follow.

 

The Bunker, The Barracks, and The Base (2023) is a portrait of collective remembrance in a landscape where invasion and occupation have shaped the lives of many generations. It explores the three architectural sites through the experiences of those who have come to inhabit them beyond their militaristic ambitions. The relationship of these sites to the land, to each other, and to the border that mediates them is rife with contradiction, and yet what binds them are the histories—memories, spirits, outlooks—of those that have learned to make a life through, with, and despite them.

Working primarily in video, and supported by photography, archival documentation and architectural drawings, Batoul Faour reflects on the recurring geopolitical realities that impact life in South Lebanon, the intimacy of living at this borderland, and the ways in which both architecture and the landscape embody these politics.

 

Batoul Faour is an architectural researcher, writer, and filmmaker who works between Beirut and Toronto. Her work operates at the intersection of politics, spatial histories, and media – blending a journalistic, documentary approach with the empirical and the architectural. These are methods she employs within and around dimensions of colonialism, migration and displacement, state and occupational violence, infrastructures, and other power systems. She holds a BArch from the American University of Beirut and an MArch from the University of Toronto.

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The Lokman Slim Foundation, in collaboration with the Mina Image Centre in Beirut, is proud to announce the inaugural edition of the Mizan Film Festival, a pioneering event dedicated to documentaries and dramas exploring the genre of political crime. With a steadfast commitment to human rights issues, this festival stands as a global precedent in its endeavor to shed light on this significant subject. The festival is scheduled to take place from July 17-19, 2023.
In conjunction with World Day for International Justice, the festival will commence on the evening of July 17, featuring the documentary “Project Cartel” (2021), directed by Jules Giraudat. The film delves into the issue of targeted killings of investigative journalists in Mexico, where approximately 200 journalists have fallen victim to assassinations over the past two decades. “Project Cartel” is part of the Forbidden Stories project, helmed by a renowned French production company sharing the same name. Through the lens of journalists from various corners of the globe, this documentary unravels the perplexing circumstances surrounding the murder of their Mexican colleague, Regina Martinez, while striving to uncover the truth behind her untimely demise. The screening will be followed by an extensive discussion involving journalists and filmmakers to explore the issue of journalist killings and the role of media and cinema in addressing this phenomenon.
On 18 July, the Mizan Film Festival will showcase two thought-provoking films that shed light on the often-overlooked issue of political assassinations of women in Lebanon and the MENA region. The evening will commence with the screening of “Lettre à ma soeur” (2006), directed by Algerian filmmaker Habiba Djahnine. The film follows the journey of her sister, Nabila Djahnine, a leftist and feminist activist.
“Lettre à ma soeur” will be followed by the premiere screening, in Lebanon, of the film “Malte, au nom de Daphné” (2021) by Jules Giraudat, offering an exploration of the assassination of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, whose life was tragically cut short by a car bomb explosion in 2017. Daphne’s murder left a profound impact on public opinion, as she had exposed high-level corruption cases prior to her assassination, implicating senior officials. The documentary follows her children, in collaboration with a network of investigative journalists, as they pursue the truth behind her assassination. Following the two screenings, an engaging discussion will be held to explore the targeting of women and the various approaches to addressing this issue in depth.
On 19 July, two films will be featured. The first will be “On a Day of Ordinary Violence, My Friend Michel Seurat…” (original title in Arabic, 1996) by the late Syrian director Omar Amiralay. This film, produced a decade after the French researcher’s tragic killing, stands as a historical and cinematic testament, showcasing the director’s remarkable ability to create a narrative that infuses its unique aesthetics into a profoundly cruel subject. Following the screening, a dialogue will ensue, focusing on Amiralay’s cinematic contributions and expanding to encompass the turbulent 1980s in Lebanon, including the political assassinations that occurred during that period.
The festival will conclude with “Z” (1969), a remarkable masterpiece directed by Costa-Gavras, a French filmmaker of Greek descent. Honored with the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, this work presents a dramatic reconstruction of the events surrounding the assassination of Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis by the far-right in 1963, leaving an indelible imprint in the genre of political crime films.
The Film Festival is supported with German Federal Foreign Office’s funds by ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen), zivik Funding programme.
Monday, July 17, 2023
19:30 – 20:00 | Open Ceremony
20:00 – 21:10 | Movie
Project Cartel, documentary, directed by Jules Giraudat
70 min | En & Fr with Arabic subtitles
21:10 – 22:00 | Discussion
Targeted for Truth: The Role of Documentaries in Countering the Assassinations of Journalists
Moderator: Jad Shahrour, journalist, communication officer and spokesperson at Skeyes
Discussants: Diana Mokallad, journalist, film director and co-founder of Daraj & Haytham Shamas, academic and director of Karama-Beirut Human Rights Film Festival
Tuesday, July, 18, 2023
18:00 – 19:10 | Movie
Lettre à ma soeur, documentary, directed by Habiba Dhjanine
67 min | En & Fr with Arabic subtitles
19:10 – 20:00 | Discussion
Political Femicides: A Specific Reality?
Moderator: Dr. Mona Fayad, academic and researcher in psychology
Discussants: Nabila Ghousein, journalist and researcher, works at The Legal Agenda & Hala Abdallah, film director
20:00 – 20:52 | Movie
Malte, Au Nom de Daphné, documentary, directed by Jules Giraudat
52 min | En & Fr with Arabic subtitles
20:52 – 21h15 | Open discussion
Wednesday, July 19, 2023
18:00 – 18:50 | Movie
On a Day of Ordinary Violence, my Friend Michel Seurat, documentary, directed by Omar Amiralay
50 min, Fr with Arabic Subtitles
18:50 – 19h45 | Discussion
Violence and Absence as Represented in Omar Amiralay’s Cinematography
Moderator: Hala Abdallah, film director
Discussants: Mohamad Soueid, producer, film critic and head of the documentary department at Al Arabiya News & Abbas Hadla, senior researcher and head of the documentation department at UMAM
20:00 – 22:07 | Movie
Z, thriller, directed by Costa-Gavras
127 min | En & Fr with Arabic subtitles
22:07 – 22:30 | Open discussion and closing ceremony
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“On travelling”, “On occult beliefs”, “On liver reading”, “On scriptures” … Lily Abichahine takes us on a unique journey in “Our Sea: Secrets of the Infinite Sea”, a lecture performance on Wednesday 22 of February 2023 in Arabic and on Thursday 23 in English, 8:30 PM at Mina Image Centre.

Having grown up on the shores of the Mediterranean, Lily Abichahine leads the project Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) following residencies held in several Mediterranean cities. In her work, Abichahine contemplates the myth-like realities of these cities and the fundamental expression of their collective unconscious. Through confronting the realities of these geographies, she refers to their myths to reinterpret them on stage. She also traces a connection between these cities, reminding us of the invisible links lying between Mediterranean contexts.

Choreography for a Woman and a Stone was the first chapter of a series of explorations held between the cities of Palermo and Beirut in 2021. The artist explored the myth of Sisyphus, putting into perspective the cycles of stone observed through the constructions, deconstructions, and ruins of both Lebanese and Italian landscapes.

In the second chapter entitled Secrets of the Infinite Sea, and after two residencies in Izmir and Marseille in 2022, the artist tackles the myth of Prometheus. In this work, she transforms herself into a contemporary haruspex and questions her own fears in parallel to migration flows in the Mediterranean Sea from ancient to contemporary times, offering her audience a reading of the future that mixes facts with dark humor through text, video, and sound.

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Mina Image Centre cordially invites you to the opening of “An Ever-Changing Stream”, an exhibition of watercolor paintings and poems by Laura Johanna Braverman on Wednesday, December 7, 2022, from 5 to 8 PM.
Laura J. Braverman’s watercolor paintings explore how geometrics and color dynamics can create an optical music of rhythm and meaning.
“An Ever-Changing Stream” weaves together images, poems, and poetic fragments in what can be experienced as an unfolding in twelve stages. The paintings embody different facets of metamorphosis through the manifestation of ideas by way of abstract configurations, and through the living act of the physical production itself. Line, form, and color come to represent a kind of metaphysical language, which allows for an exploration of concepts and energies. Just as transformation proceeds in its own way and in its own time, so the emergence of these patterns and shapes is developmental and intuitive.

The artist is selling the works for the benefit of Oum el Nour.

Laura Johanna Braverman

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Mohamad Abdouni’s work has focused in recent years on documenting the present of queer communities in Arab speaking territories. With “Treat Me Like Your Mother”, the focus shifts towards the past, in an attempt to understand and record the histories of those who came before, shedding light on the stories and images of trans* women in Lebanon. Where these stories are not necessarily representative of an entire community, they offer a glimpse into the lives and histories of individuals that are caught in a convoluted intersection between gender and sexual discrimination, all over the world, and more so in this region.

With the support of LGBTQI+ NGO Helem, Mohamad and his team spoke to and photographed ten Lebanese trans* women aged between late thirties and late fifties. The full accounts of these women were published by Cold Cuts in a book with the same title, bringing together unseen photographs of the trans* community in Lebanon from the 1980s and the 1990s. These images are now in the custody of the Arab Image Foundation, in what is arguably the first such photographic archive of the trans* community in the Arab region.

The women interviewed are part of a community that was once visible in Beirut and had an active role in the city’s culture; elders that have paved the way for the queer community today in ways more than one. They are now largely confined to their homes, and their histories are mostly untold. The work presented could not have been possible if it weren’t for their generosity and willingness in sharing their stories and photographs. This exhibit is dedicated to them, and in memory of Katia, who is no longer with us. The women are Jamal Abdo, Antonella, Dana, Dolly, Em Abed, Hadi, Katya, Kimo, Mama Jad, and Nicole.

*Trans* is used in recognition of transgender, transsexual, trans-feminine, trans-masculine and trans-non-binary identifying people.

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Mina Image Centre and the Arab Image Foundation (AIF) present Translating Images: Conversations with the Collections of the Arab Image Foundation.

Bringing together two recent collaborative projects by the foundation, the exhibition explores the many lives that images can bear, and the ways in which photographic archives can be unpacked and re-interpreted through research and artistic practices.

The first project consists of 19 diptychs drawing from the AIF’s collections, produced in collaboration with the Beirut Printmaking Studio. These works were first shown in July 2022 in an exhibition titled Impressions from an Archive, presented at the Exhibition Research Lab in Liverpool in the framework – and with the support of – the Liverpool Arab Arts Festival.

The second project is a series of video commissions, produced in collaboration with Cinema Galeries (Brussels). These video works were presented in the exhibition Videos on Beirut in the framework of Cinema Galeries’ yearly festival L’heure d’hiver in April 2022.

Though these two projects were initially conceived and exhibited in Liverpool and Brussels, respectively, they are presented at Mina Image Center side by side through a scenography that brings to the fore the mediums they engage in – be it printmaking or the moving image – creating a synergy between the two.

This exhibition marks the first presentation of these projects in Lebanon.

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When I went to film Beirut after the August 4th, 2020 port blast, I found destroyed places that I had previously filmed in the post-war 1990s. I thought of those places – their residents and memories –, how they disappear again and again, and how our images soon become archives.

I became obsessed with documentation and archiving early on, maybe because I was born in a city that was gone. I started to look for it in films. I worked on chronicling the history of cinema in Lebanon, precisely in search of that city.

I treated feature films as archival material that would help me recapture the place and the atmosphere, even if watching them was often difficult.

“In this Place: Reels of Beirut” takes us back to the area extending from the port to the hotels, passing through the central business district, through the lens of five shorts consisting of a montage of scenes assembled from 50 Lebanese, Arab and foreign fiction films made between 1935 and 1975.

Welcome to Beirut, The Port, Downtown, The Hotel, The Cabaret. Text, moving and still images, posters – all in a small space that recalls the wider place.

Hady Zaccak

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Reminiscent of Islamic manuscript layout design, Chaza Charafeddine copies in her own handwriting Franz Kafka’s letter to his father, a letter that never reached him.

In an attempt to write to her father, the artist traps the viewer into her own doubts, questions the communication between daughter and father, and destabilizes the original father/son conflict. As such, the artist touches upon the fears inherent in a long-lost communication. After all, a letter never written is a letter never received but is a letter written always received?

“Letter to the Father” reveals an interest in appropriating visual elements from the past by subverting Kafka’s original German letter, copying it in Arabic, and presenting it in different forms.

Chaza Charafeddine is an artist and writer. She studied special education at La Branche – Centre de formation en pédagogie curative et sociothérapie in Switzerland, and Eurhythmy dance at the Eurythmieschule – Hamburg in Germany. After exploring the fields of education and dance for 15 years, she turned to photography and writing. Her photographic works were shown in numerous galleries and artistic venues in Lebanon and abroad. In 2012 Dar Al-Saqi, Beirut has published her first novella Flashback and in 2015 her short-story collection Haqibatun Bilkade Tura. Chaza Charafeddine is represented by Agial Art/Saleh Barakat Gallery.

The exhibition is a collaboration between Mina Image Centre and Saleh Barakat Gallery.

Curated by Manal Khader

Artist book special edition: Nathalie Elmir and Fouad El Khoury
Sound design: Rana Eid – DB Studio
Lighting: Moustapha Yamout
Text: Alya Karame
Audio: Chaza Charafeddine, Nathalie Elmir and Fouad El Khoury

Dates: 10th November – 30 December, 2021
Times: Thursday – Saturday 12 – 5pm

Admission is free.

Please respect Covid distancing rules and wear your mask.

Special thanks to: Fouad El Khoury, Marita Sbeih – DB Studio, Mohamed Al Mufti, and Hazem Saghieh

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Performing artist Farima Berenji and musician Hanan Halwany are coming together for a magical performance of improvised Sufi dance and music. Joining them on stage will be Nicole Farah reciting a selection of poetry by some of the great Sufi poets including Rumi and Hafez. The performances will take place as part of Mina’s ongoing intervention “Beirut Kaputt?” curated by Stéphane Sisco, with Ayman Baalbaki’s painting All That Remains as the backdrop.

Performing artist: Farima Berenji
Musician: Hanan Halwany
Poetry recital: Nicole Farah
Production manager: Géraldine Blache

Dates: 27th & 28th May
Times: 5 – 6.30 pm & 7.30 – 9 pm

Admission is free. Donations greatly appreciated.
Spaces are limited so please RSVP in advance to: info@minaimagecentre.org
Otherwise entrance will be on a first come, first served basis.
Drinks will be sold at the bar.
Please respect Covid distancing rules and wear your mask.

Special thanks to Greta Khoury, Bernard Khalil, Jean Gibran, Mersel Wine, The Blue House Tea, Riwaq Beirut, The Saadallah & Loubna Foundation, and Géraldine Blache.

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The installation Beirut Kaputt? is a reflection on the representation of violence. It consists of two juxtaposed works: a video montage of social media clips of the Beirut Port explosion and the painting All That Remains by Lebanese artist Ayman Baalbaki.

The project allows us to reflect on the constant recycling of traumatic news, imagery, headlines and captions and how this can add to, rather than appease, our traumatic experiences. How, rather than engaging in nuanced reflection, fast media often exploits traumatic events by triggering a most basic human emotion: fear.

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On 4th August, 2020, Mina sustained considerable damage during the Beirut Port explosion which devastated the port area and its surrounding neighbourhoods. As well as the immediate impact on lives and livelihoods, the long term aftermath of the explosion on the social and cultural fabric of Beirut is enormous and will be felt for years to come. The adjoining areas of Gemmayzeh and Mar Mikhael were once considered the pulse of Beirut’s artistic and cultural scene, and the heritage buildings, homes and businesses in these hard-hit neighbourhoods are currently undergoing an arduous process of rebuilding and renovation.

Months after the explosion hit, Mina has decided to come back to life, not merely as an act of defiance against the perpetrators of the blast, but also to give back to a community and a neighbourhood that has contributed so much during the past few decades only to suffer so much loss after a year of economic collapse and criminal political negligence.

Mina is currently seeking funds to help rebuild the physical space from supporting partners, institutions and donors. Once the necessary funds have been raised, Mina will begin rebuilding and renovating, a process that will take approximately six weeks to complete should the external circumstances allow for it.

In the meantime, we thank you for your patience and look forward to welcoming you all in our newly renewed space the soonest possible.

MINA IMAGE CENTRE AFTER 4TH AUGUST 2020

MINA IMAGE CENTRE UNDER RECONSTRUCTION

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In solidarity with and participation in the popular uprisings taking place across Lebanon against the current systems of power, we the undersigned cultural organizations and structures collectively commit to Open Strike, and call for our colleagues in the cultural sector to join us.

Arts and Culture are an integral part of every society, and the expanded space of creative and critical thought is imperative in times of upheaval. The strike is therefore not a withdrawal of the arts and culture from this moment, but rather a suspension of “business as usual.”

In this period, we will maintain minimum necessary administrative and basic operations, with team-members who are willingly fulfilling our respective responsibilities. The strike is also in response to the desires of team members to be on the street, a desire we are legally and ethically bound to.

While on strike, we are connecting with colleagues across sectors and groups to formulate together what we can contribute to the movement. We are part of a national, regional and global desire to dream, think, fight for, enact and embody radical imaginations leading to structural and systemic change. See you on the streets.

Signatures
Arab Image Foundation
ُThe Arab Fund for Arts and Culture – AFAC
Beirut Art Center
Sursock Museum
UMAM Documentation & Research
House of Today
TAP/ Temporary Art Platform
Beirut DC
Dar El-Nimer for Arts and Culture
The Hangar
MACAM – Modern And Contemporary Art Museum
Culture Resource (Al-Mawred Al-Thaqafy)
Metropolis Art Cinema
Irtijal
Ashkal Alwan

Updated
Shams: The Cultural Cooperative Association for Youth in Theatre and Cinema
Ettijahat-Independent Culture
Seenaryo
Beirut Art Residency’
Samandal
Bidayyat
Ishbilia Theatre and Art hub- Saida
Action for Hope
Collectif Kahraba
Sfeir-Semler Gallery
Beirut and Beyond
Dar Onboz
Mina Image Centre
KOON Theater Group
Minwal
STATION
Zoukak Theatre Company and Cultural Association
Dar al-Mussawir
Selections
Zico House
Fondation Liban Cinema
Hammana Artist House
be:kult
Beirut Spring Festival
L’Orient des Livres
Editions Snoubar Bayrout
Clown me in

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Courtesy of the artist and Edouard Malingue Gallery, Hong Kong for R for Resonance

 

R For Resonance By Ho Tzu Nyen​

2019, Installation with VR video 360 degrees, ambisonic sound through headphones, single-channel video projection, 6-channel sound

Gongs are ubiquitous ritual and musical objects found everywhere in Southeast Asia. To tell the story of the Gong in this region is to embark upon a story spanning at least 5,000 years, beginning with the Southeast Asian Bronze Age. In R for Resonance, this complex tale of cultural diffusion, technological adaptation, and social domination is condensed into a dream-like visual dictionary unfolding in Virtual Reality, in which the recurring form of the circle opens to ever-expanding rings of associative vibrations.

R for Resonance is the 9th volume of an ongoing project, The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia (CDOSEA). This project begins with a question: What constitutes the unity of Southeast Asia, a region never unified by language, religion or political power? CDOSEA proceeds by proposing 26 terms for the 26 letters of the English/ Latin alphabet; each is a concept, a motif, or a biography, serving as a thread that the artist uses to weave new tapestries of this region that isn’t one.

Courtesy of the artist

God’s Army (And Other Suffering Loves) By Jumana Emil Abboud​

2018-2019, Drawings, folded paper sculptures, wooden sculptures, video (1’24’’)

Unravelling the space between vessel and void, as well as desire and emptiness, God’s Army (and other suffering loves) draws its inspiration from the locust invasion of 1915 and other collective and personal misfortunes that enforce a state of exile, longing, and unrequitedness. The project draws our attention towards the question of how we move amidst extremes and between times; or rather, how we are forced into such states of being when circumstances are beyond our control. The artist’s research, drawings, sculptures, and video works stage an environment fixated in multi-layered and coded imagery. The works speak of entrapments, bilateral dimensions, gesturing language, loves unrequited, passions starved, and healing bruised⁠—mapped out across a deprived territory that is masquerading as abundance as it sways inside and outside of time.

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Perhaps, in their attempt to meet, people seek to forget.​

Hanna Mina “Snow Comes Through The Window”​

Unlike Hanna Mina, whose novel inspires the title of this exhibition, in his works, Taysir Batniji does not seek to forget, but to embody the concepts of void, absence and separation. His works are pivoted on the representation of absence and the possibility of the disappearance of its forms of representation.

Batniji lives in Paris, where he works with a land from which he cannot work. In his recent work, Disruptions, he takes screenshots of encrypted WhatsApp conversations with his family in Gaza. At times, he would see his mother and at others he witnesses her disappearance. The scrambled images, sometimes due to poor internet connection and at other times because of war, transpose us to a space where the public and private are intertwined.

In Fathers, Taysir took images of fathers, whose photographs hung prominently in public spaces around the city of Gaza. The images foreshadow spaces where those photographs appear in workshops and shops around town, a majority of which may have been inherited and handed down by those absent fathers.

The images are not much of a sociological work on fatherhood as much as a research work that deals with the relationship between the photograph and the duality of presence and absence, or the idea of the presence of absence. The Traceswith water colors collection then offers an interrogation of the aftermath of absence.

Batniji draws on the works of Bernd and Hilla Becher on water tanks, to offer a topographic document of the Israeli watchtowers spreading throughout the West Bank. In Watchtowers, Batniji sought to produce an optical illusion, where the viewers believe that they recognize what they are seeing, its content and its author. It is only on close inspection that one realizes that these images have nothing to do with Becher’s techniques. Here Batniji, invites his viewers to look closely on this turbulent presence as he transforms it into a record of disappearance, absence and separation.

In The Press

L’Orient Le Jour | Taysir Batniji, puissant et poignant témoignage d’une identité non identifiée

 

18 June, 2019
L’artiste palestinien revient sur trois volets qui sous-tendent cet événement, et plus globalement son œuvre depuis sa genèse…
The Daily Star | Presence, absence and Palestine

 

13 June, 2019
“Not being able to go to Palestine,” the France-based artist says, “you feel like this period of your life belongs to another time or another person.”
Al Modon | الرمل يأتي من النافذة» لتيسير البطنيجي: فراغ وغياب»

 

12 June, 2019
لا تسعى هذه المجموعة إلى تقديم تحليل سوسيولوجي أو ثقافي، فهي نتاج اهتمام شخصي بهذه الحالة (أو اللاحالة) من حضور الغياب أو غياب الحضور والحالة الموجودة بينهم
Al Araby | تيسير البطنيجي.. نافذة مفتوحة على الغياب

 

3 June, 2019
يواصل الفنان الفلسطيني تيسير البطنيجي (١٩٦٦) مقاربة مفاهيم وثيمات تتعلق بالذاكرة والهوية والاحتلال والمكوث في المكان والعبور منه وإليه، عبر تفكيكها وتحويلها إلى عناصر مجرّدة ومصغّرة في رؤية تعيد ربطها بأفكار وسرديات موازية ومنحها عمقًا ومعاني جديدة
Al Akhbar | تيسير البطنيجي: غزة أول الكلمات وآخرها

 

7 June, 2019
“أكثر من ثلاثة عقود وهو ينبش في عالم يحاصره العنف وتحده حدود جغرافيا صنعها الإنسان. يقاوم النسيان بالذاكرة، لا الذاكرة الإلكترونية، بل تلك الحية النابضة، ويربط الماضي بالحاضر، ليس ذاك المشبع بالمآسي فقط، بل بالحياة اليومية في كل تمظهراتها.”

All artwork featured courtesy of the artist & Sfeir-Semler Gallery (Hamburg/Beirut)

 

Biography

Born in Gaza in 1966, Taysir Batniji studied art at Al-Najah University in Nablus, Palestine. In 1994, he was awarded a fellowship to study at the School of Fine Arts of Bourges in France. Since then, he has been dividing his time between France and Palestine. During this period spent between two countries and two cultures, Batniji has developed a multi-media practice, including drawing, installation, photography, video and performance…

Already involved in the Palestinian art scene since the nineties, he multiplied his participation, since 2002, in a number of exhibitions, biennials and residencies in Europe and across the world.

Taysir was awarded the Abraaj Group Art Prize in 2012 and became the recipient of the Immersion residency program, supported by Hermes Foundation, in alliance with Aperture Foundation in 2017. His works can be found in the collections of many prestigious institutions of which the Centre Pompidou and the FNAC in France, the V&A and The Imperial War Museum in London, the Queensland Art Gallery in Australia and Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi.

Taysir Batniji’s work is represented by Sfeir-Semler Gallery (Hamburg/Beirut).

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Irving Penn (1917-2009), recognized as one of the masters of photography of the twentieth century, is widely admired for his iconic images of high fashion and for the remarkable portraits of the artists, writers, and celebrities who defined the cultural landscapes of his time.

Drawing inspiration from Resonance, an exhibition organized by the Pinault Collection in 2014 at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, the exhibition Untroubled seeks first and foremost to pay tribute to the photographer’s unique legacy.

At the heart of the resonance throughout Penn’s prolific body of work is the lasting influence of the core photographic principles he studiously developed early on. The serene consistency of his image production is deeply indebted to his scrupulous efforts, through the years, to abide by the technical and artistic commands he devised for himself. This self-imposed discipline result in a nearly flawless production.

Penn’s principles remain to this day as relevant as ever, so much so that they are still regarded as empirical truths in spite of the socio-economical, philosophic and aesthetic upheavals of a world that is constantly reinventing itself.

Exhibiting the work of Irving Penn to mark the opening of a new center for contemporary image production is a mission statement, one that embraces the history of photography and the work of the late masters while looking to the future. Penn’s work is a monument of epic artistic resilience, a major reference for contemporary photography and an endless source of inspiration for generations to come.

All the photographs that appear in this exhibition are drawn from the Pinault Collection. Although in date they span more than four decades, they are presented not as a retrospective but are loosely arranged by subject.

Penn was first and foremost a studio photographer. His photographs, with their simple backdrops of paper, canvas, or bare wall, establish a spatial container at once formal and insular. Whether haute couture, still life, ethnography, or memento mori, the image is decontextualized, intense and demanding of attention.

Penn’s subjects appear at first glance to be quite disparate – celebrities, skulls, cigarette butts. But removed from their natural environment and with an unflinching focus on their materiality, they achieve a democratic leveling that is the signature of Penn’s style. Each subject is equal under his gaze, a quiet yet insistent intruder into the neutral space of the studio.

Trained as a painter, with photography as a side interest, Penn went on to study commercial art and was eventually hired in 1943 as assistant to Alexander Liberman, art director of Vogue in New York, who will become a life-long mentor and friend. That same year he began working for the magazine as a staff photographer and soon established himself as the most innovative professional in the field.

Penn’s commercial success did not inhibit but rather fueled his personal artistic experimentation. In 1949-50 he embarked on a series of nudes that were remarkable for their abstraction. Unlike his work for the magazine, where the printing was in the hands of technicians and the images were made for wide distribution, in these photographs Penn had total control over every aspect of the printing. This first experience of close involvement with the print led him to investigate other processes in the 1960s, among them platinum-palladium printing. Practiced early in the twentieth century, the platinum process created an image that is virtually unlimited in its range of tonal variation. The various aesthetic possibilities of the platinum printing process also inspired Penn to revisit earlier work, printing in platinum and palladium photographs that he had originally printed in universally used gelatin silver. Indeed, the constant reworking of image would provide the fundamental structure of Penn’s creative approach.

The exhibition thus presents the photographs not in a linear, chronological sequence but arranged in a manner that brings out their subliminal affinities. Commercial projects cohabit with ethnographic studies, discarded refuse with sophisticated models, cultural celebrities with animal skulls.
As Penn remarked, “It is all one thing”.

Photo Credit: The Hand of Miles Davis (C), New York, 1986 © The Irving Penn Foundation

The National | Photographer Irving Penn’s work is coming to the Arab world for the first time

 

28 January, 2019
Untroubled, the first exhibition of Penn’s work in the Arab world, underlines the truth of this statement. Penn’s photographs are deeply moving and deceptively simple, at once beautiful and tightly controlled, almost surgical.
Al Modon | كاميرا ايرفينغ بن…حياة الفحم

 

25 January, 2019
اعتبرت أساليب ايرفينغ بن، ثورية في مجال التصوير التجاري، حيث كرس خلال الأربعينات استعمال الخلفية البيضاء أو المتقشفة، عند تصوير الأزياء والأغراض التجارية، بلا أي زيادات في الديكور والخلفية. وقد اقتُبس أسلوبه هذا على نطاق واسع، وساهم في تكريس الطابع الإختزالي المعاصر لأعماله. أما أساليب الإضاءة عند ايرفينغ بن، فهي حادة وموجهة بشكل عام، وقد …
Asharq Al-Awsat | معرض «لا مكترث» لإيرفينغ بن يلتقط فوضى هادئة بعدسة

 

12 June, 2019
نحو 50 صورة فوتوغرافية تحكي عن موضوعات مختلفة التقطها إيرفينغ بن بالأبيض والأسود وبالألوان خلال مشواره الفني (1917 – 2009)، يعرضها «مركز مينا للصورة» في بيروت تحت عنوان «لا مكترث» ويأتي هذا المعرض الذي يستمر حتى شهر أبريل (نيسان) المقبل بمثابة أول محطة لأعمال المصور العالمي الراحل في منطقة الشرق الأوسط
Reuters | مؤسسة غير ربحية في بيروت تعيد إلى فن التصوير الفوتوغرافي رونقه

 

18 January, 2019
في وقت تخطف فيه الصورة المتحركة العين من كل ما هو ساكن قرر مركز مينا للصورة إعادة الاعتبار للتصوير الفوتوغرافي من خلال إيجاد فضاء جديد في بيروت لهذا الفن العريق
L’Orient-Le-Jour | Irving Penn à vie, et au cœur de Beyrouth…

 

19 January, 2019
La faire passer d’un médium destiné à une grande consommation, comme ses photos pour le Vogue, à une œuvre d’art brillamment composée, ce qui fait de lui un maître de l’art et non seulement de la photographie.
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Before Mina Image Centre officially opened its doors, the space hosted an exhibition of Lebanese photographer Fouad Elkoury under the title Passing Time. A book of the same name was published alongside the exhibition, showcasing photographs spanning over 40 years of his work in Lebanon.

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