98weeks

98BOOK FAIR

2012-01-18T21:57:00.000-08:00

WHY DO YOU PUBLISH? SCHEDULE EVENTS 2- 5 FEB.

THURSDAY 2/ Opening

7PM

FRIDAY 3/ Presentations

11:00 98weeks

11:30 Amers Editions

12:00 Lemon Melon

2:00 Print Room

2:30 Samandal

3:00 Batroun Projects

3:30 Aboudi Abou Jawdeh

9:30 Theatre of Desire at 98weeks

SATURDAY 4/ 98weeks Research Roundtables
2:00 – 4:30 Robyn Scofield Creswell, Sam Wilder Amal Dibo
5:00: Youssef Bazzi
6:30: Lokman Slim ON EROTICA MAGAZINE

SUNDAY 5/ Batroun Projects
2 PM: Bus leaves from 98weeks to Batroun

Evening: Concert with Steven Warwick + Al Marmoot!

98TALKS

2012-01-18T04:38:00.000-08:00

Hazem Saghieh

“Where Are We a Year After the Start of the Uprising?”

Jan 20, 7pm

Hazem Saghieh is the second speaker to intervene in “Arab Thought and the Arab Spring", a talk series inviting scholars, writers, philosophers and artists to reflect on the status and conditions of intellectual thought in the Arab world in the midst of the current uprisings. “Arab Thought and the Arab Spring” is organized by Chaza Charafeddine.

98EVENTS

2012-01-12T00:55:00.000-08:00

Sunday Night Community Acupuncture Sessions

Starting January 15, and every Sunday starting at 7pm

With Sarah Farahat

You will be treated by Sarah Farahat: a certified acupuncture detoxification specialist. She is trained in the NADA (North American Detox Association) Five Point Protocol. She has been practicing the treatment since 2009 and has worked with a variety of people to treat post-traumatic stress and various substance addictions. The treatment also has positive effects on anxiety, insomnia, cravings, detoxification, and withdrawal from drugs, alcohol, tobacco and psychiatric medications. The points are also excellent for general wellness and improving overall health, including migraine headaches, allergies and other issues. Generally there are no side effects, and anyone with any health condition can safely receive this treatment.

The suggested cost for the session is 5- 20 $. If you wish to attend an Acupuncture Session please send a text message to 76806647 by 6 pm, bring a light blanket and a small pillow for your back and remember to eat at least a light snack before coming.

98VIDEOS

2012-01-09T00:31:00.000-08:00

'Searching for Hassan', 61 min, 2011
Directed by Edouard Beau
Arabic with French Subtitles

January 11, 7pm

“November 2007. I have been asked to go and film a Kurdish battalion of the Iraqi army. This battalion is located in Mossoul. I have 48 hours to make a decision. I decide to go. There, a friend gives me his old Hi8 camera with ten tapes. I am a photographer. I have never filmed anything. I have never seen war. For a whole month, I remain close to these soldiers and I film their everyday life, in spite of everything. Long waits, times out, endless wanderings through the city, looking for untraceable terrorists.” The film will be introduced by Serge Abiaad.

Edouard Beau practices a "vagabond photography" that cultivates the taste of story telling, human adventure and political expedition. Taking the "Kurdish paths", he gives us different visions of Northern Iraq, torn apart with social, political, and religious or ethnic conflicts. Edouard Beau went from Sangatte (2002) to Mossoul (2007) and approached besieged cities to understand the mechanisms of exile and the reasons behind a certain sort of immigration.

Serge Abiaad is a film professor at the University of Montreal and a film critic for 24 Images.

TIME:AALBORG/ SPACE:2033

2012-01-04T07:21:00.000-08:00

Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld
January 6, 2012
6pm, at 98 weeks project space
TIME:AALBORG/ SPACE:2033
In 2033 the construction worker Ludvig is sent into space to repair the space station “9000 Aalborg”. Suspended in time between past and future, fiction and reality Ludvig recollects the memory of the site to change the future. TIME:AALBORG/ SPACE:2033 is a three-screen video installation specially designed for the amphi-theater of Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg (Denmark). In 1933 Aalborg hosted a fairground for arts and culture to create optimism and hope during the great depression. But the optimism was short lived: Following the German occupation of Denmark, the fairground was turned into the headquarter for the German soldiers. During the war the fairground burned down to the ground and in post-war times Finish architect Alvar Alto erected the Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg on the site.

Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld will discuss the video in relation to her artistic research project “Rehearsing Reparative Critical Practices” and her current project “Movement City”, developed for Metro Al Madina, Beirut. To articulate agency artistically, socially and politically, the reparative critical practice proposes a communal dense exploration of fragments of cultural fabric in response to different “broken” contexts and situations.

Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld works with multi-channel video installation and performance. She is currently doing an artistic research PhD at the University of Copenhagen – “Rehearsing Reparative Critical Practices”.

98WEEKS' FUNDRAISER DINNER / PARTY

2011-12-22T03:32:00.000-08:00

98weeks' yearly fundraiser dinner / party is taking place at Tawlet restaurant and 98weeks (next to each other), on Tuesday the 27th starting 8:30pm

This year we have invited artists to cook, and the menu will be prepared by: Nayla Audi, Hoda Baroudi, Sarah and Susanna Farahat, Joanna Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Maxime Hourani and Mirene Arsanios, Hatem Imam, Nesrine Khodr and Wael Lazkani, Rabih Mroue, Franziska Pierwoss, Setareh Shahbazi

98EVENTS

2011-12-07T07:27:00.000-08:00

DEC 10, 7 PM
Video Screening and Gastronomy
Presented by Nesrine Khodr

Screening of short interviews with local designers and gastronomes featured in the weekly cultural TV magazine 'Lamasat'.  This is an opportunity to see the work of some of the most vibrant artists working today in Beirut in the fields of design and good food!  The screening is a selection of reportages ranging between six to eight minutes with interludes filled with gourmet bites.Featured designers include Nada Debs, Ole Jensen, Milia Maroun, photographer Tarek Moukaddem, mashghal el Shouf, chef Wael Lazkani and many more.

The reports will be presented by Nesrine Khodr, an artist and filmmaker living and working in Beirut, who has been the executive producer and supervising director of the program since its inception in 2008 on Future news channel. The canapés will be prepared by Wael Lazkani, executive chef of JAI. Some asian specialties will also be available for take away.

'UNTHINKING ISRAEL'

2011-12-07T07:18:00.000-08:00

DEC 9, 6 PM
A talk by Rohit Goel

In this talk, Rohit Goel shows how an either/or approach to ideas and institutions, evident in the debates on Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, has plagued scholarship on Jewish nationalism and Israeli state formation more generally. In contrast to this approach, he argues that ideas and institutions worked dialectically to make the Israeli nation-state in Palestine thinkable and thus practicable. Goel first engages abiding scholarly debates on Jewish nationalism, which hold fast to a rigid divide between ideational and materialist explanations of Israeli state formation. He then uses the prevailing academic literature on nations and nationalisms to develop a dialectical method for studying the Israeli case, the subject of the final part of the talk. There, he shows show how from the 1890’s to 1948, contentious debate on the questions of whether the modern Jewish nation exists, what that existence entails and where it should exist, and finally how it ought to organize politically, worked dialectically with institutional practices to form the Israeli nation-state. To conclude, he emphasizes how liberal ideological contention, rather than oft-assumed coherence, has functioned to sustain Jewish nationalism and shore up Israeli state formation in Palestine over time. As a result, only a radical, anti-liberal critique of Israeli nationalism will work to solve the ‘question of Palestine’.

Rohit Goel is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. His dissertation, War and Peace in Lebanon, shows how civil violence and multicultural tolerance have sustained one another over time in Lebanon, a dialectical relation that has shored up the Lebanese nation-state. He received an MA in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 2006 and, as Harvard University’s Paul Williams Fellow to Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, an MPhil in Social and Political Relations in 2003. He graduated with a BA in Social Studies from Harvard College in 2002.

98TALKS

2011-11-30T06:56:00.000-08:00

December 3, 2011
6:30 PM, 98Weeks Project Space

Joep van Lieshout (Atelier Van Lieshout)

Joep van Lieshout will present his work, with a focus on the following interlinked subjects: free state Rotterdam, new industrial revolution, new tribal organization and Slave City agriculture. Recurring themes in the work of Atelier Van Lieshout are autarky, power, politics, and the more classical themes of life and death. Recent works reflect on the possible end of civilization as we know it. In our extremely advanced and complex society over-consumption and limited raw materials play a crucial role. Once supplies are exhausted, society will see a harshening of relations between people and increased survival instinct, changes which will lead to an emergence of various new cultures in the near future.

Joep van Lieshout (1963, Ravenstein) lives and works in Rotterdam. Since the early eighties he produces objects in - mainly - bright coloured polyester, the material that would become his trademark in subsequent years. In 1995 he founded Atelier Van Lieshout (AVL), undermining the myth of the individual artistic genius. Atelier Van Lieshout has attained international recognition for objects that balance on the boundary between art, architecture and design. These works of art are practical, uncomplicated and substantial.

THEATRE OF DESIRE/ 98WEEKS CABARET NIGHT

2011-11-30T06:55:00.000-08:00

December 2, 2011
9:30 PM, 98Weeks Project Space

SPARKLE, SPELLBIND, AND SOAR at Theater of Desire Cabaret!
If you would like to perform, please respond to this message. Anything and everything and all languages are possible!
Singles, partners, amateurs, professionals, trios, minstrels, actors, poets, playwrights, puppeteers, all are welcome! The stage is open!

98VIDEOS

2011-11-23T06:11:00.000-08:00

The Young Man Was (Part 1: United Red Army)
a work in progress, Naeem Mohaiemen, 67 minutes, 2011
NOVEMBER 25, 2011Starts 6PM. 98WEEKS Project Space.
The film will be followed by a conversation with the artist.

On September 28th 1977, JAL 472 lands in Dhaka. Later, the lead negotiator explains that they had to allow the landing, because the pilot said he was running out of fuel.
The film pivots off the audio transcripts of negotiations over the next five days. Shumon Bashar wrote in Tank: “the crackly voices of these two strangers hurled into a forced, awkward intimacy… the tone with which they started their discussion was peculiarly polite, until the accord between ransom and reason reached breaking point.” The film is part of a long-form research project since 2006, which looks at the 1970s ultra-left.

Naeem Mohaiemen works in Dhaka and New York, using essays, photography, and film to explore histories of the global left and utopia projects. His work has shown at Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Experimenter Kolkata, New Museum (New York), Frieze (London), Sharjah Biennial, MUAC (Mexico City), and Whitney Biennial of American Art (as member of Visible Collective). He is editor of Chittagong Hill Tracts in the Blind Spot of Bangladesh Nationalism (Drishtipat Writers Collective) and co-editor of System Error: War is a force that gives us meaning (w/ Lorenzo Fusi, Silvana). His essays include “Islamic Roots of Hip-Hop” (Sound Unbound, MIT Press), “Flying Blind: waiting for a real reckoning on 1971” (EPW, India), “Beirut, Silver Porsche Illusion” (Men of the Global South, Zed Books), “Asterix and the Big Fight” (Apex Art Journal) and “Mujtaba Ali: Amphibian Man” (Rest of Now, Manifesta Biennial). [shobak.org]

NOV/ DEC EVENTS AT 98WEEKS

2011-11-20T23:55:00.000-08:00

98VIDEOS

NOV 25
The Young Man Was (Part 1: United Red Army)
a work in progress, Naeem Mohaiemen, 67 minutes, 2011
Starts 6PM. The film will be followed by a skype conversation with the artist

On September 28th 1977, JAL 472 lands in Dhaka. Later, the lead negotiator explains that they had to allow the landing, because the pilot said he was running out of fuel.

The film pivots off the audio transcripts of negotiations over the next five days. Shumon Basar wrote in Tank: “the crackly voices of these two strangers hurled into a forced, awkward intimacy… the tone with which they started their discussion was peculiarly polite, until the accord between ransom and reason reached breaking point.” The film is part of a long-form research project since 2006, which looks at the 1970s ultra-left.

Naeem Mohaiemen works in Dhaka and New York, using essays, photography, and film to explore histories of the global left and utopia projects. His work has shown at Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Experimenter Kolkata, New Museum (New York), Frieze (London), Sharjah Biennial, MUAC (Mexico City), and Whitney Biennial of American Art (as member of Visible Collective). He is editor of Chittagong Hill Tracts in the Blind Spot of Bangladesh Nationalism (Drishtipat Writers Collective) and co-editor of System Error: War is a force that gives us meaning (w/ Lorenzo Fusi, Silvana). His essays include “Islamic Roots of Hip-Hop” (Sound Unbound, MIT Press), “Flying Blind: waiting for a real reckoning on 1971” (EPW, India), “Beirut, Silver Porsche Illusion” (Men of the Global South, Zed Books), “Asterix and the Big Fight” (Apex Art Journal) and “Mujtaba Ali: Amphibian Man” (Rest of Now, Manifesta Biennial). [shobak.org]

DEC 10

Nesrine Khodr

Screening of short interviews with local designers and gastronomes featured in the weekly cultural TV magazine Lamasat. This is an opportunity to see the work of some of the most vibrant artists working today in Beirut in the fields of design and good food!

The screening will be a selection of reportages ranging between six to eight minutes with a pause filled with gourmet bites. The topics will be presented by Nesrine Khodr, an artist and filmmaker living and working in Beirut, and who has been the executive producer and supervising director of the program since its inception in 2008.

98EVENTS

DEC 2
THEATRE OF DESIRE/ 98WEEKS CABARET NIGHT
9:30 PM

SPARKLE, SPELLBIND, AND SOAR at Theater of Desire Cabaret!

If you would like to perform, please respond to this message. Anything and everything and all languages are possible!

Singles, partners, amateurs, professionals, trios, minstrels, actors, poets, playwrights, puppeteers, all are welcome! The stage is open!

DEC 27: SAVE THE DATE!
98WEEKS FUND RAISING EVENT: MORE INFO SOON
98TALKS

DEC 3
Joep van Lieshout (Atelier Van Lieshout)
6:30 PM

Joep van Lieshout will present his work, with a focus on the following interlinked subjects: free state Rotterdam, new industrial revolution, new tribal organization and Slave City agriculture. Recurring themes in the work of Atelier Van Lieshout are autarky, power, politics, and the more classical themes of life and death. Recent works reflect on the possible end of civilization as we know it. In our extremely advanced and complex society over-consumption and limited raw materials play a crucial role. Once supplies are exhausted, society will see a harshening of relations between people and increased survival instinct, changes which will lead to an emergence of various new cultures in the near future.

Joep van Lieshout (1963, Ravenstein) lives and works in Rotterdam. Since the early eighties he produces objects in - mainly - bright coloured polyester, the material that would become his trademark in subsequent years. In 1995 he founded Atelier Van Lieshout (AVL), undermining the myth of the individual artistic genius. Atelier Van Lieshout has attained international recognition for objects that balance on the boundary between art, architecture and design. These works of art are practical, uncomplicated and substantial.

DEC 9
Rohit Goel, “Unthinking Israel”
6 PM

In this talk, Rohit Goel shows how an either/or approach to ideas and institutions, evident in the debates on Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, has plagued scholarship on Jewish nationalism and Israeli state formation more generally. In contrast to this approach, he argues that ideas and institutions worked dialectically to make the Israeli nation-state in Palestine thinkable and thus practicable. Goel first engages abiding scholarly debates on Jewish nationalism, which hold fast to a rigid divide between ideational and materialist explanations of Israeli state formation. He then uses the prevailing academic literature on nations and nationalisms to develop a dialectical method for studying the Israeli case, the subject of the final part of the talk. There, he shows show how from the 1890’s to 1948, contentious debate on the questions of whether the modern Jewish nation exists, what that existence entails and where it should exist, and finally how it ought to organize politically, worked dialectically with institutional practices to form the Israeli nation-state. To conclude, he emphasizes how liberal ideological contention, rather than oft-assumed coherence, has functioned to sustain Jewish nationalism and shore up Israeli state formation in Palestine over time. As a result, only a radical, anti-liberal critique of Israeli nationalism will work to solve the “question of Palestine.”

Rohit Goel is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. His dissertation, War and Peace in Lebanon, shows how civil violence and multicultural tolerance have sustained one another over time in Lebanon, a dialectical relation that has shored up the Lebanese nation-state. He received an MA in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 2006 and, as Harvard University’s Paul Williams Fellow to Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, an MPhil in Social and Political Relations in 2003. He graduated with a BA in Social Studies from Harvard College in 2002.

98Weeks at ISCP - Open Studios

2011-11-04T01:03:00.000-07:00

In October 2011, ISCP launched an annual residency for an international contemporary art organization. This residency was initiated in the same spirit as ISCP’s residency program, to support cultural exchange by bringing an international perspective into a local context. Currently in residence at ISCP is 98weeks, a non-profit, artist-run space in Beirut. 98weeks operates within an expanding arts infrastructure and addresses a new generation of artists living in Beirut. Their activities are collaborative and research-based, combining both theoretical and practical forms of inquiry. 98weeks’ projects take multiple forms such as workshops, community projects, seminars, video screenings, reading groups and publications. Every 98 weeks, a research topic is outlined and worked on for that same time period. 98weeks’ first topic addressed spatial practices in Beirut, and their current subject focuses on publications. Activities, ideas and projects often stem from ongoing discussions and conversations with the community of artists living in Beirut.

To translate this singular configuration into another city, and to transpose 98weeks’ project space into an institutional one, poses different challenges, such as how to re-present the immaterial, process-based nature of 98weeks’ activities. In order to address this, 98weeks presents A Program, which is being hosted by ISCP to accompany Open Studios, and which reflects on operating strategies and structural differences. A Program will have autonomous opening hours and will host a series of events to gather the audience at a given time and space. These events will introduce the public to 98weeks through the group’s first two research topics.

98weeks A Program Schedule
November 4-6th, 3-7pm: On the city, a selection of videos and works that disclose urban narratives on contemporary Beirut, revealing aspects of the city and its history that have not yet been subsumed under dominant narratives or popular clichés. Artists include Marwa Arsanios, Vartan Avakian, Mounira el Solh, Siska and Karine Wehbe. Most of the works could be considered as detours, circumventing what is most visible and overwhelming: traces of war destruction, sensationalist reportages, or the commonplace representation of a city standing between the East and the West. Most works are concerned with following material remains – architecture ruins, which stand as witnesses to anecdotal histories, still to be narrated. In her work Marwa Arsanios researches the history of the beach resort Acapulco which stood as an autonomous living pocket promising a dolce vita amidst political turmoil and radical urban transformations. Mounira el Solh’s work, the Sea is a Stereo queries our perception of Beirut’s swimmers, which everyday, swim in Beirut’s public beach located along the city’s main pedestrian walkway. Siska’s video E.D.L portrays Lebanon’s National Electricity building as homage to a once modernist project linked to the very construction of Lebanon’s modern state. On Publications revisits historical publications from the Middle East, reinterpreting their present potential for our understanding of the history of literary and publishing production. A selection of books by artists close to 98weeks’ activities will be available for the public to read by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Mirene Arsanios, Rayya Badran, Mounira el Solh, Rana Hamadeh, Hatem Imam, Samandal Magazine, Jana Traboulsi and Karine Wehbe.

Saturday, November 5th, 5pm: On Publications Suneela Sunbula and Mirene Ghossein will read two poems, by Sargon Boulos and Adonis, respectively, and both published in Shi’r, an avant-garde poetry magazine (1957 – 1970) created by the Lebanese poet Youssef el Khal and known for introducing the prose poem in Arabic.

Sunday, November 6th, 3pm: Text Tasks: Roles and Relations in Artistic Research, a roundtable conversation with Mirene Arsanios and Sidsel Nelund addressing a series of physical and dialogical tasks challenging the relation between thinking and doing, theory and practice. These tasks have been developed through an ongoing conversation between Arsanios and Nelund on the conditions of knowledge, its performance and its spaces of production. At ISCP they will enact three ‘text tasks’ that explore and expand the possibilities of the text by performing its different usages.

A 98WEEKS' TALK by BIK VAN DER POL

2011-10-12T08:36:00.000-07:00

"Ideas You Believe Are Absurd Ultimately Lead to Success"
October, Sat. 22, 6:30 PM, 98Weeks Project Space

In this presentation, which may interest public space artists and urban planning professionals alike, the renowned Dutch artists Bik van der Pol will present their practice and methods and discuss the different aspects, problematics and potential of working in public space. Rather than produce objects, their work responds to the specifics of an exhibition, a site, a community, creating a response which calls into question the norms of institutions, information, public spaces, community boundaries, and discourses. Their work uses a creative, aesthetic, critical approach to invent a corresponding response which might take the form of a book, a billboard, a built environment or a sign on a traveling truck. Their art investigates methods of working and the potential of art to produce and transmit knowledge. They describe their working method as one which engages with "functionality, site sensitivity and negotiation at an institutional and intimate, local level. Generation of knowledge and memory as a necessary potential for dialogue and the development of a certain level of understanding is one of its main objectives."

Biography: Bik Van der Pol work collectively since 1995. They live and work in Rotterdam (the Netherlands). Bik Van der Pol explore the potential of art to produce and transmit knowledge. Their working method is based on co-operation and research methods activating situations to create platforms for various kinds of communicative activities. Recent solo shows and projects include Are you really sure a floor can’t also be a ceiling? ENEL Award 2010, MACRO museum, Rome (2010); It isn’t what it used to be and will never be again, CCA Glasgow (2009); I’ve got something in my eye, Marie Louise Hessel Museum/CCS Bard, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY (2008); Nomads in Residence/No.19, a mobile workspace for artists, Utrecht (2003, with Korteknie Stuhlmacher architects). Recent group shows include: The Future of Pumphouse, Pumphouse gallery, London (2011); We are Grammar, Pratt Institute, New York (2011); Learning from Vancouver, Western Front, Vancouver (2010); Portscapes, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2010). Forthcoming shows will include: Street of Sculptures, Bijlmer, Amsterdam (2011/2012); A Retrospective Future, CAC VOX, Montreal (2011); Living As Form, Creative Time, New York (2011). They curated Too late, too little, (and how) to fail gracefully, Kunstfort Asperen, ww.kunstfortasperen.nl (2011). See for more information on their work: www.bikvanderpol.net.

98WORKSHOP/PERFORMANCE

2011-09-30T05:43:00.000-07:00

A KING LISTENS: AN AUDIOBOOK WORKSHOP/PERFORMANCE LED BY LAWRENCE ABU HAMDAN

Workshop: Oct 9, all day, 98Weeks Project Space

Performance: Oct 9, 7:30PM, 98Weeks Project Space

Following last years audio adaptation and performance of Harold Pinter's play Mountain Language at 98weeks, the focus of this workshop will be to communally direct, cast and produce an audiobook of A King Listens a short story by Italo Calvino. At the end of the workshop, A King Listens will be recorded and performed live in front of an audience.

Calvino’s text was chosen because of its relevance to Abu Hamdan’s ongoing research project, Aural Contract, which is a series of events, publications, performances, exhibitions, workshops and audiovisual material that examine a contemporary politics of listening through a focus on the role of the voice in law.

This one day workshop with a public performance in the evening will allow a core group of participants to hear and perform in space the ideas and arguments at the centre of the project.

The workshop will employ an open directorial system in which many possible arrangements, cast and outcomes of the text will be explored and performed. As well as the production of the performance this workshop will function as a discussion event about the themes raised in the book, about sound and about the technical production of the audiobook and performance. Therefore the participants (both cast, discussants and production team) can be drawn out of a diverse set of backgrounds and the workshop is open to anyone who is interested in drama, literature, sound and sound production. This event is part of the Aural Contract Project www.113dalstonlane.com/auralcontract

Biography: Artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan is based in London, his projects include Model Court CCA Glasgow (2008) and Chisenhale Gallery London (2011). Aural Contract Homeworks 5 Beirut (2010) and WYSPA IS Gdansk (2011). He is now developing a radio documentary trilogy produced by The Showroom London, Casco Utrecht and as part of a Phd at the Centre for Research Architecture Goldsmiths College. Abu Hamdan is part of the group running the arts spaces Batroun Projects, Lebanon and 113 Dalston Lane in London.

2011-09-28T05:27:00.000-07:00

NOW 98Weeks is open on Wednesday and Friday from 3 to 7 pm, or on appointment.

THEATER OF DESIRE CABARET - 98WEEKS' NIGHT

2011-09-23T08:10:00.000-07:00

THURSDAY, 29 SEPTEMBER at 98Weeks
Starts 9:30 pm

SPARKLE, SPELLBIND, AND SOAR at Theater of Desire Cabaret !

Singles, partners, amateurs, professionals, trios, minstrels, actors, pots, playwrights, puppeteers, all are welcome ! The stage is open!

VISIT 98WEEKS BAZAAR AT THE THESSALONIKI BIENNAL

2011-09-03T01:54:00.001-07:00

September 18 - December 18, 2011

Thessaloniki Biennal, In situ.

Throughout the biennal period, 98weeks will run a bazaar containing artists' books, publications and historical collections. People are invited to browse, sell and settle exchanges.

This project is set in the framework of 98weeks's research on historical publications and artists'books - since April 2010. For the biennal, 98weeks will publish a selection of the talks and interventions on "Al-Hilal" magazine.

Participating artists:
Mohamad AbdelKarim, Lawrence Abou Hamdan, Mounira Al Solh, Lara Almarcegui, Francis Alys, Dimitris Ameladiotis, Marwa Arsanios,Mirene Arsanios, Hisham Awad, Bandrolsuz Magazine, Eric Baudelaire, Elena Bellantoni and Daniela Alloca, Clifford Boress, Susan Bosch, , Victor Hugo Bravo Tony Chakar, Jasper Coppes and Stijn Verhoeff, Cura magazine, Lana Daher and Charbel Haber, Jason de Haan and Miruna Dragan, Sirine Fattouh, Rana Hamade, Loes Heebink and Soledad Pinto, Mark Henley, Hatem Imam, Interactivé Povera, Daniel Jacoby, Lamia Joreige, Nesrine Khodr, Paul Kneale, Lynn Kodeih, Shitamichi Motoyuki, Sidsel Nelund, Mariagiovanna Nuzzi, Zeynep Oz and Suna Kafadar, Iordanis Papadopoulos and Nana Sachini, Bonny Poon, Tom Robinson, Javier Rodriguez, Mario Rodríguez and Camila Jouannet, Katia Rombou, Samandal magazine,Setareh Shahbazi and Mirene Arsanios, Siska, Shimal Travel Guide, Mihalis Theodosiadis, Jana Traboulsi, Fadi Tufeili, Vaticanochico publishing (Misha Stroj and Francisco Araya), Karine Wehbe, Andy Weir, Dilek Winchester, Nihal Yesil, Akram Zaatari, 2HB magazine, 98Weeks Publications.

Including Abboudi Abou Jaoude’s (Al-Furat Publishers) collection of historical cinema magazines.

OPEN CALL!

2011-07-22T10:10:00.000-07:00

98WEEKS BAZAAR AT THE THESSALONIKI BIENNIAL
98weeks has been invited to participate in the Thessaloniki biennial (September 18–December 18, 2011). Following 98weeks Bazaar presented at the No Soul For Sale at Tate Modern where we invited artists to contribute by bartering their artworks for other items or favours, we’d like to extend a similar call for participation in Thessaloniki.

Throughout the biennial period, 98weeks will run a stand containing mainly publications. People are invited to browse, sell and settle eventual exchange with an attending stand keeper. With focus on publications, on published material or publications you’ve selected for one reason or another and that you’d like to extend to a larger audience.

If you would like to take part in the Bazaar, please send us a description of your book by August 6 at info@98weeks.net.
Material will subsequently be sent to Thessaloniki directly. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch should you require additional information. We’re looking forward to hear from you!

This project is set in the framework of 98weeks' research on historical publications and artists’ books - since April 2010. For the biennial, 98weeks will publish a selection of the talks and interventions on the "A-Hilal" and Shi'r publications.

PLATFORM TRANSLATION, 4TH EDITION “On Books and Translation”

2011-07-08T16:36:00.000-07:00

15 July: Opening 6:30 pm
For the Beirut edition of “Platform Translation”, artists were invited to develop artists’ books and publications. The participants explored the book format using it as an end object in itself, as a way of organizing research and sketches in a poetic manner, or even as a platform for collaborations and correspondences. The process of producing the books was addressed in different manners, its possibilities stretched, often departing from a story or an archive. The issue of words, images, movement and distribution being inherent to books and printed material were also explored through the set format of books. “On Books and Translation”, convenedby 98weeks, aims to constitute a large travelling library of artists’ books, adding up along the way.

In this edition participants are: Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Dimitris Ameladiotis, Marwa Arsanios, Elena Bellantoni and Daniela Alloca, Víctor Hugo Bravo, Federico Cavallini (invited by Silvano Manganaro), Hatem Imam with Jana Traboulsi, Interactivité Povera (collective), Daniel Jacoby, Manos Kornelakis (invited by Zoi Pappa), Mariagiovanna Nuzzi, Zeynep Oz and Suna Kafadar, Zoi Pappa, Iordanis Papadopoulos and Nana Sachini (invited by Zoi Pappa), Katia Roumbou, Soledad Pinto and Loes Heebink, Javier Rodríguez, Tom Robinson, Mihalis Theodosiadis,Vaticanochico Publishers, Karine Wehbe and Mirene Arsanios.

A one day video screening titled “Short voyage” will be presented by Curating Contexts (Sidsel Nelund and Pamela Prado) on July 15th at 98weeks' 2nd floor starting from 6:30pm.

"Short Voyage" is a video screening that evolves around the concept of hospitality and translation. On the one hand, the videos deal with the situation of someone coming to a place for the first time and on the other hand, the screening of the programme will be a one to one encounter in a homely setting, where the spectator is invited to watch and discuss one video of own choice together with the curator. Short Voyage thus enhances both the artist as a translator of place and the curator as a mediator between artist and spectator.
With: Valentina Serrati, Nicolas Sanchez, Amilcar Packer, Johanna Unzueta, Renata Padovan

16 July: Roundtable with Platform Translation, Daniela Allocca and Sidsel Nelund

On Platform Translation
Platform Translation was initiated in 2007 by a group of artists - Marwa Arsanios (Lebanon), Elena Bellantoni (Italy), Soledad Pinto (Chile) and Mihalis Theodosiadis (Greece) - that were studying together in London. The main idea was to carry on working together and developing their respective practices outside of the university context. “We wanted to create a space where we would experiment with our art and travel to various cities in order to get inspired, to test and challenge our practices in new contexts.” This act in itself necessitated a translation process, where each artist’s practice had to be adapted to a new context.The project delves into ideas of translation through its very organizational and travelling structure.In each city, a curator takes on the responsibility of inviting artists to participate in that specific edition, and each curator is also invited to make an intervention in the preceding and following destination.Until now, we have developed 3 editions of the project: in Athens (2008) curated by Zoi Pappa; Santiago de Chile (2009) curated by Natalia Arcos; and Rome (2010) curated by Silvano Manganaro and Barbara D'ambrosio. In 2012 the project will be in Berlin at NGBK and Kunstlerhaus Bethanien and it will be curated by Elena Agudio and Paz Guevara

ON PUBLICATIONS

2011-04-11T02:24:00.000-07:00

ON PUBLICATIONS is a research project launched by 98weeks in April 2010. The research consists in re-reading and interpreting several historical arts and culture publications that were produced and distributed in the Arab world since the 1930s.    As the material has become a testimonial to a certain artistic and intellectual life that flourished throughout the Arab world, our interest is to activate it by inviting writers, poets, artists and collectors to intervene or re-interpret specific issues from these collections. We hope that this will create a space to reflect upon the different processes of modernization and ideals of modernity that were breaking through the region, and that were expressed in publications through translations, graphic experimentation, aesthetics, language, etc.
The research will have four main focuses: Mainstream publications; Literary publications; Visual arts publications and fanzines and Porn publications. Collections presenting these publications will be regularly displayed in 98weeks’ newly refurbished project space.

FOR MORE DETAILED INFORMATION ON THIS RESEARCH, PLEASE REFER TO THE BLOG SECTION "ON PUBLICATIONS"

MOVING THROUGH

2011-01-07T02:31:00.000-08:00

This 3‐day workshop led by Alia(17-19 Dec.2010) Hamdan offered an interdisciplinary space to explore movement, not as in physical or dance training, but in its relation to language; how can language be a tool to generate movement? How do we understand, perform and create physical movements departing from spoken or written language? How do we read, decode, and incorporate into language experiences based on movement?
Through a series of exercises and tasks, the workshop will explore the existing gap between doing and knowing: if we suppose that everyone knows the meaning of the verbs to fall, to accelerate or to wonder, and can make use of them in text or speech, to what extent are we familiar with the experience of falling, accelerating and wondering?

Workshop participants
Maya El Khoury, Bassem Mansour, Giacomo Galeno, Daniel Balabane, Mounira el Solh, Mirene Arsanios

Moving Through a Body‐Mind, is part of 98weeks’ program WORDS/ACTION, which looks at the relation between writing and performance through different approaches and disciplines.

98WEEKS FUND RAISING PARTY !

2010-12-15T03:18:00.000-08:00

98WEEKS AT THE LEBANESE ART BOOK FESTIVAL

2010-11-18T03:34:00.000-08:00

16- 20 November, UNESCO Palace
98weeks research project presents its contributors at the Festival of Lebanese Art Books UNESCO Palace 16 – 20 November 2010, Beirut.
With books by
Karine Wehbe
Rana Hamadeh
Setareh Shahbazi
Youmna Habouche
Jana Trabousli
Hatem Imam
Tony Chakar
Olaf Nicolai
Mirene Arsanios
Siska
Charbel Haber and Lana Daher

On Saturday 20th, at 5PM, Rana Hamadeh will introduce and read passages from her magazine, "Graphis 127", on Skype, live from Amsterdam. SEE YOU THERE !

DOWNLOAD THE PUBLICATION PRODUCED FOR THE OCCASION AND PRESENTING THE CONTRIBUTORS

PERFORMANCE BY LAWRENCE ABU HAMDAN

2010-11-18T02:34:00.000-08:00

Saturday Oct. 23

For the event at 98 weeks Lawrence Abu Hamdan will direct and adapt for audio a theatrical reading of Mountain Language a short political play written by Harold Pinter in 1988. This play was written as an indictment against the bans and regulations enforced upon speech during Margaret Thatcher’s Britain but is relevant to any situation in which such a fundamental tool of political oppression is employed. As well as listening to the live performance of the play those in attendance will be able to select and listen to excerpts from the Aural Contract Audio Archive, a growing collection of recordings from trials, police interviews, performances, cinema etc. Both parts of this event invite an act of listening that intends to open a wider discussion around the politics of the voice and the ear in both the local context of Beirut and beyond.

Exhibition -Setareh Shahbazi

2010-10-05T22:28:00.000-07:00

98weeks is happy to present Setareh Shahbazi's new exhibition

"I Am Glad that Things Have Changed"

at 98weeks Project Space
Wednesday -Saturday, 3- 7 pm
or by appointment
For exhibition text
http://mirenearsanios.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/on-setarehs-work/

MAGAZINE AND FANZINE LAUNCH AT 98WEEKS

2010-08-11T23:58:00.000-07:00

GOINGS ON BEIRUT

2010-06-23T06:10:00.001-07:00

Werk in collaboration with 98weeks Project Space presents

Goings On
A meeting of international independent art spaces taking place in Beirut

Public presentations at 98weeks Project Space:

Friday June 25 at 6pm ”Space makers Beirut” Cesar Nammour (Recto Verso Library) Christine Tohme (Ashkal Alwan) and Jadmur collective (Ghassan Maasri and Mansour Aziz)

Sunday June 27 at 3pm ”Space as Support” Pikene på Broen (Norway), Kultivator (Sweden), rum46 (Denmark), El Hervidero (Spain), All Art Now, (Syria), Samandal (Lebanon), Interruptions (Jordan), Medrar (Egypt), Cura Bodrum residency (Turkey)

Music performance & drinks All welcome!

SOME IMAGES FROM GOINGS ON...

Day 1: Setting up 98weeks Project Space

Luba Kuzovnika presenting her work

SPACE MAKERS BEIRUT

Cesar Nammour presenting the art spaces he created throughout his life...

Christine Tohme in conversation with Mirene Arsanios on Ashkal Alwan

GOINGS ON/ ON GOING

Samandal Comics presented at rum46, DK

THROUGH MEDIA, 98WEEKS WORKSHOPS

2010-05-24T03:18:00.000-07:00

“THROUGH MEDIA…” WORKSHOP
29 MAY – 19 JUNE 2010

Calligraphy: Alya Karame
Drawing: Jana Traboulsi, Hatem Imam, Omar Khouri
Site specific interventions (wall painting): Setareh Shahbazi

During a one month period, workshop leaders and participants met every Saturday at 98weeks to develop a work based on a single image. The workshop's idea was to depart from a common image and interpret through different exercises involving abstraction, scale, perspective etc.

Starting point: An image that Alya Karame had taken from her balcony in Tripoli.

PHASE 1: Setting Up the Space

Day 1: Each participant sets up his/her own working station

Phase 2: Exercises

Jana's absraction

Intervening of each others exercises

Setareh's abstraction

Phase 3: Back to white and developing elements from the research process...

CALL FOR APPLICATION
98WEEKS announces the first workshops related to its research theme Through Media…, a research on and through different artistic media. 3 simultaneous workshops exploring the practice of drawing, calligraphy and site specific interventions, will take place at 98WEEKS Project Space during the month of June.
As a starting point for the workshop and as a way to create a thread between the 3 media, the workshop leaders will select a single image that the participant will depart from and translate trough the different techniques.
The working process will be structured around a series of exercises and around the creation of common spatial narrative, using 98weeks' walls and architecture. 98weeks project space will transform into an art studio where participants and workshop leaders are invited to create a dialogue based on a process of translation, from one medium to another.

ON "THROUGH MEDIA…"
As one of 98weeks research themes, Through Media… focuses on the role and importance of different media such as drawing, painting and calligraphy in artistic practices. By stressing the importance of material and formal components, the particularity of each media and what it allows for, Through Media… wants to think the history of media in art practices-focusing on the Lebanese context-and the place they occupy in contemporary practices and discourses.
Trough Media… will be explored through a series of media based workshops and talks. Workshops will be carried in 98weeks Project Space, which will become a site for experimentation.

If you are interested in participating to the workshop Through media..., please send
your CV and portfolio to the following email addresses;
Partcipation fee: 50.000 l.l.
mirenearsanios@gmail.com / marwaarsanios@hotmail.com

98WEEKS BAZAAR AT NSFS

2010-05-16T23:45:00.000-07:00

98WEEKS BAZAAR AT NSFS
98weeks SOUK/ BAZAAR at No Soul For Sale will present a series of artworks by artists working in Beirut, together with publications, objects and ephemera collected from second hand bookshops and flea markets.The objects on display can be exchanged through barter in London, following the artists' conditions

ARTISTS PARTICIPATING IN 98WEEKS SOUK: Hatem Iman, Karine Wehbe, Alia Karame, Marwa Arsanios,Jana Traboulsi, Nathalie Harb,Hisham Awad,Ghassan Maasri, Konversation pieces, Siska, Franziska Pierwoss, 9

8weeks bazaar, Alicjia Rogalska.

98WEEKS PRESENTATION Alicjia Rogalska will perform a conversation with Marwa and Mirene, presenting 98weeks activities in Beirut. The presentation is scheduled for May 14 from 16:00 to 16:30 at the Main Stage or Auditorium.

SOME ITEMS EXCHANGED...

HATEM IMAM
ITEM: hand made book
EXCHANGED FOR: a hand made artist book

ALIA KARAME
ITEM: Calligraphic envelope
EXCHANGED FOR: An aesthetically pleasing flat surface with a curious content. Drawn, painted, etched, silk screened or monoprinted.

Exchanged for 2 hand-made cards.

MARWA ARSANIOS
IITEM: 4 DVDS (fatina wal moughamer; nissa' fi khatar; l- al oubat al nisa'
al makhtouf)
EXCHANGED FOR: screen it and send pictures from screening to marwaarsanios@hotmail.com

All exchanged for screenings (details in the emails)

ITEM: Comic/ Manara: le parfum de l'invisible
EXCHANGED FOR: A comic

ITEM: Dress from the Carlton's curtain project
EXCHANGED FOR: Wear it and send a picture to marwaarsanios@hotmail.com

ITEM: Red shoes
EXCHANGED FOR: For another pair of red shoes

JANA TRABOULSI
ITEM: Passport
EXCHANGED FOR: Another passport with a visa

KARINE WEHBE
ITEMS: 3 photographs
EXCHANGED FOR: A work created with old photographic material
for a small format drawing with vivid colors, or a useless white object, reused and reinterpreted press cut outs.

2 exchanged for other objects – see images

NATHALIE HARB
ITEMS: 3 flying objects
EXCHANGED FOR: 3 sedentary objects
(2 flying objects: exchanged only with Adriana Cobo and Andrea Cusumano. The last one can be exchanged with anyone)

All exchanged.

ITEM: Woven passport
EXCHANGED FOR: photocopies of visa

Exchanged for 2 photocopies of visas

HISHAM AWAD
ITEM FOR EXCHANGE: Text “ The Distance from Proximity”
ECHANGED FOR: " A vinyl. A Hot Chip vinyl or anything from the DFA. Or anything neo-disco"

GHASSAN MAASRI
ITEM FOR EXCHANGE: A painting (intervention on a ready made Orientalist painting).
EXCHANGED FOR: a round ticket Beirut/ London.

KONVERSATION PIECES
ITEM FOR EXCHANGE: Stories
EXCHANGED FOR: See instructions on the book

FRANZISKA PIERWOSS
ITEM: Untitled (Hoummus), Edition of 20
EXCHANGED FOR: A give away with any traded object. Other offers can be negotiated directly with Franziska Pierwoss at NSFS.

SISKA
ITEM: “Occasione”, two megaphones
EXCHANGED FOR: One megaphone with "A present for Peter & Colin"
The other megaphone: with " a date for the KINO"

98WEEKS BOOKS/ MAGAZINES

ITEM: Middle East Map
EXCHANGED FOR: Not exchangeable

ITEM: Magazines, Monday Morning
EXCHANGED FOR: Exchanged a magazines of historical relevance.

ITEM: MISS. Magazine
EXCHANGED FOR: A work of art made of some images/ texts found in the magazine.

Exchanged for an artwork made out of the magazine.

ITEM : Chain of postcards from Lebanon
EXCHANGED FOR: A fair exchange

Exchanged

ITEM: Book on Birds
EXCHANGED FOR: book on Palm Trees

ITEM: Real Estate Dictionary
EXCHANGED For: A real estate Story

ITEM: Magazine Baghdad
EXCHANGED FOR: Public reading of one of the texts

Exchanged.

ITEM PLANETE: Magazine Planet
EXCHANGED FOR: A nice art magazine from the 60s.

http://yellowtrace.com.au/blog/2010/05/26/no-soul-for-sale-festival-of-independents-tate-moderns-10th-anniversary/

BIDOUN LIBRARY AT 98WEEKS

2010-04-17T03:21:00.000-07:00

Opening of the Bidoun Library at 98weeks

Opening of the Bidoun Library at 98weeks

Shumon Bassar reading some passages from his new book on the opening
night.

APRIL 17 – MAY 15, 2010
Bidoun Library & Project Space @ 98 Weeks April 17 – May 15, 2010, daily from 3pm – 7pm except on Sundays

98 Weeks Project Space, Ground Floor, Chalhoub Building, Off Nahr Street, Facing Spoiler Center, Before Jisr Hadid, Mar Mikhael

Opening: Saturday April 17, 5pm, with readings by Bidoun contributing editors and writers Shumon Basar, Wael Lazkani and more, plus a conversation with the comics’ collective Samandal.

Debate: Saturday May 8, 5pm, with a panel including Abboudi Abou Jaoude of Al-Furat Publishers.

The Bidoun Library & Project Space is a collection of artists’books, magazines, journals, monographs, exhibition catalogues, rare books and related ephemera mapping contemporary art practices and the evolution of various arts scenes in and around the Middle East.

Created by Bidoun Projects, the library is an itinerant resource that gathers as it travels. The point of the library is not to be comprehensive but rather curatorial. For each iteration of the library, Bidoun asks artists, collectives, arts organizations and independent publishers to add carefully selected materials to the library that reflect their interests, histories and,on occasion,obsessions. The result is an idiosyncratic archive of printed matterthat is constantly evolving and ever changing. The dynamic of the library is such that along the way it also raises key questions about collecting, archiving and the fetishizing of certain practices and materials.

In addition to core materials collected by Bidoun over the past five years, the library to date includes curated selections by Ashkal Alwan and the Arab Image Foundation, alongside a treasure trove of influential comic books and magazines selected by the comics’collective Samandal, and a wonderful cache of artists’ books chosen by the artist Banu Cennetoglu, founder of the Istanbul-based independent publisher BAS. Beyond printed matter, the library also includes programs of music and sound projects, curated by Hassan Khan and Tiffany Malakooti and presented on dedicated iPod listening stations. The Bidoun Library & Project Space debuted at Abu Dhabi Art in November 2009, in a pop-up space designed by the UAE-based design firm traffic.
In March 2010, it traveled to Art Dubai, where Bidoun Projects was the fair’s curatorial partner. Now the library has arrived in Beirut, where it is being hosted by the 98 Weeks Project Space in Mar Mikhael from April 17 through May 15, 2010.

The third appearance of the library coincides with the launch of 98 Weeks’ new research project on avant-garde journals and popular magazines stemming from moments of modernity in the Arab world. 98 Weeks’ collection of publications will be on permanent display at the 98 Weeks Project Space. As an ongoing research project, it will develop thematic approaches over time, and involve workshops,readings and discussions on the gathered material.

The library is presented in partnership with Abu Dhabi Art. Bidoun would also like to acknowledge the support of the Emirates Foundation, the Bohen Foundation and the Foundation for Arts Initiatives.

The 98 Weeks Project Space is open daily from 3pm to 7pm, except on Sundays.

For more information on the Beirut leg of the library, please contact Marwa Arsanios (+961 3 417 321), Mirene Arsanios (+961 70 802 522) or Antonia Carver (+971 50 454 6051). For a PDF of the catalogue listing all of the materials in the Bidoun Library to date, please visit www.bidoun.com

THIS SATURDAY: "ARTS FLORAUX" AT 98WEEKS PS

2010-03-25T01:05:00.000-07:00

"ARTS FLORAUX" AT 98WEEKS
OPENING SATURDAY MARCH 27 AT 6 PM

"Arts Floraux"a project by Peter Currie and Colin Whitaker, will turn the 98Weeks project space into a temporary conceptual flower shop. Imagining the flower shop as an in-between place (between the natural and the commercial, between public and domestic, between local and global, between the momentary, the seasonal, and the enduring, and between decoration and art) this project animates some curious ideas about the way flower shops, flowers, plants and shrubbery come into play around Beirut.

The city's architecture - from the French mandate-era balconies to the modular modernist terraces and newly built glass patios of corporate condos - nearly always presumes some greenery mediating between city and home. In Beirut, public parks and gardens are few and far between, but concrete high-rises spill over with terrace gardens and local flower shops stay open deep into the night.

"Arts Floraux" takes off from this botanical impulse, presenting still-life arrangements with flowers and various found vessels and objects. Included among these objects, and recalling the vanitas tradition of still-life paintings, will be a collection of cow bones discovered in a Lebanese meadow that have mysteriously anthropomorphic features. Arrangements will be presented in different sculptural configurations, primarily against backdrops made from awning-canvas.

“Wildflowers”
In conjunction with “Arts Floraux”, artist Rachel Hines will perform “Wildflowers” – a drawing session that will culminate from a walk through the neighborhood in search for wild flowers. Participants will wander through the neighborhood with the artist, gathering flowers, and encountering the space through collaborative aesthetics.

The action will begin at 11 am on Saturday, April 2nd, initiating from 98weeks, meandering throughout the streets and returning back to the “Art Floraux” exhibition space. Here the participants will arrange and draw from the flowers assembled after the walk. All are welcome, but space is limited. Please email rachelahines@gmail.com if interested.

BIOS

Colin Whitaker (American, 1980) is a filmmaker and artist currently working in Beirut. He studied film at New York University and has exhibited at the P.S. 1 Clocktower in New York, Evas Arche und der Feminist in New York, and at the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis. He participated in the Fall 2009 workshop with 98Weeks investigating the Mar Mikhail neighborhood of Beirut.

Peter Currie (American, 1985) studied art history at Columbia University in New York. He has contributed to a number of art publications as a writer, and has worked at contemporary art galleries in New York and Beirut.

Rachel Hines is an interdisciplinary artist working with themes revolving around absence, community, and intimacy. The work takes shape in performances, actions, objects, paintings and drawings. Ms. Hines studied at Pratt Institute, NY where she received her MFA in Interdisciplinary Art with an emphasis in Art and Design Education. While at Oregon State University she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting with a minor in Art History. Hines has shown extensively throughout the U.S. including recent exhibitions at Electric Celluloid Film Festival, MI, NutureArt, NY and the Patchogue Biennial, NY. Hines is currently the Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing at the American University of Beirut,

Proposal for a roundtable at 98weeks/ Some archival questions following the March Meeting

2010-03-16T09:42:00.000-07:00

98weeks has started a research on artistic and cultural magazines published in the Middle East from the 40s on. Above a scan from the Egyptian magazine, Kitabi. The first part of this research will be presented at the Bidoun Library, at 98weeks PS in April 2010.

Just got back from the March meeting in Sharjah, a useful 3 day event to map the work of associations and artists operating in the Middle East, and to link with nice people.
Many presentations converged around "the archive".

You had pad.ma's web platform (http://pad.ma/) where to upload/ download digital footage, which, more than reflecting on the nature of the document, it's historical value and artistic reinterpretation, was entirely focused around the use of digital footage, ways of navigating the material and what could activate in terms of community. There is no distance separating the material's accessibility/ production/ distribution. The material posted online also does not refer to one specific field (art/ documentary), its categorization spanning from art to health and medicine to found footage. One can also choose to browse the material by year, author, director, date, duration...
Basically ,what pad.ma has created is a living archive, archiving itself while it is being consumed. Rather than creating a visibility that relies on highlighting selecting and excluding material/ others, it creates a navigational mode where the user chooses what to select and how to select it.

It was interesting to think Okwui Enwezor's interpretation of the archive together with Pad.ma's. Here are some of the notes that I took during his talk:

not simply emblematic archival modernity (critical transaction, new pictorial experience… against photographic trace) photo record (appearance of the statement as a unique event) unique: analogue of a substance. mechanical inscription. accurate description, ability. time and event, image and statement. world as image. archival record; archiving machine…a priory, archival object. making the archive visible (system..the machine itself..a priory archival. disjunction temporal event and the attempt to systematize these events into a body of knowledge. archival production… gigantic machine time, anthropological (family album, yahoo, my space, we live in an archival edge…) one of simultaneity , temporal gap, gradually been obliterated. thinking historically in the present. standard unity (witness the war…) new archival economy. organized form of representation (form) civilization can’t be described exhaustively.. within these rules…what we can say fragments, regions etc… ground the archive, is already impossible. against his archi consignation. (Derrida) gathering… archive as economy of signs…signals of trigger. Hans peter Feldman 1) mimic the archive 2) archive as media how to reconcile the archive the archive with the national ?

The archive is fragmentary, it is an apparatus which presupposes exclusion and control, etc. ect.
I agree.The problem is that his reading of the archive is curatorial in the sense that it relies on the curator (he even noted that the curator selects what he wished highlight from this material. He is the reader) The curator reads the archive through the artist's often individual practice, which becomes the repository of the archive, its activation and interpretation. Although Fiona Tan has an intricate extra national background, her use of footage will be use in a national pavilion, at the Venice Biennial, in a room with a comfortable gray carpet were visitors can sit and watch (interesting to compare with Aernout Mik's sitting display in the same pavillion). And this is fine. The problem resides more in that the use of that footage and what it can produce remains confined to the curator/ artist/ public relation and is read through this constellation, produces a discourse there, and most probably uniquely there.

There could be more to talk about but I want to throw out a couple of questions and try to gather soon at 98weeks Project Space around the question of the archive;

-Is there a difference in treatment, archiving mode, reading when the material being archive is historical?

-Can the archive be a fetish AND something else ?

-How to counter the value associated with historical archives and research ?

-What is the relation between the researcher's/ artist's reading, articulation and selection of the material and the material. Can the material's meaning be given through the gesture of collecting and gathering rather through a historical/curatorial reading?

-How do we deal with the question of copyright in relation to historical material, private collections, artist's interventions etc.

-What open source system can we think for the history of modern Lebanese art (for 98weeks, the story of modern magazines).

-How does the knowledge produced on the archive depend on its form and accessibility?

Please continue the list.