Points of Contact
Exhibition and public program curated by Helene Kazan
A project by the Goethe Institute, Lebanon in collaboration with The Arab Center for Architecture and the British Council, Lebanon
27 January – 10 March 2018
A project by the Goethe Institute, Lebanon in collaboration with The Arab Center for Architecture and the British Council, Lebanon
27 January – 10 March 2018
Promotional poster produced for exhibition and public program 'Points of Contact'. Design by Karim Farah. Copyright of Goethe Institute Lebanon and Karim Farah.
‘Points of Contact’ brought together multi-media responses and investigations into the architecture of the lived built environment in Lebanon. The participating artists, theorists, activists, lawyers and architects explored an interpenetration of private and public spheres affected through a lived condition of capitalism and conflict. The exhibition changed and evolved over its duration, being constructed, and reconstructed as each participant presented their work through screenings, conversations, performances, lectures, and walking tours, taking place across two experimental roundtable events on January 27 and February 17, 2018.
Participants included: Shakeeb Abu Hamdan, George Arbid, Marwa Arsanios, Rayya Badran, Habib Battah, Vanessa Bowles, Hiba Farhat, Dima Hamadeh, Samar Kanafani, Helene Kazan, Jessika Khazrik, Fadi Mansour, Ayat Noureddine, Yoriko Otomo, Mohamed Safa, Rania Stephan, Sandra Schaefer.
The first experimental roundtable 'Body As Testimony, Poetics and Gender' paid particular attention to the effects of capitalism and conflict at the scale of the human body, observing changes in the architecture of the built environment that take place in response to this human bodily experience. This event further questioned how dominant methods of producing evidence or giving testimony can exclude or render the human body invisible. Proposing a possible turn towards the poetics of human testimony, this event asked questions in regards to method of engaging more inclusionary account of human bodily experience of this affect?
The second experimental roundtable ‘Built Between the Slow, the Structural and the Spectacular’ observed a spectrum of methods that attempt to capture and evidence the slow, structural and spectacular violent affects of capitalism and conflict, seen through transformations in the architecture of the built environment. Asking how does the lived built environment or the architecture of the domestic space becomes an archive of such transformations? Further questioning how planning methods becomes a way of speculating and projecting the affects of capitalism and conflict into the future?
For further information:
https://www.goethe.de/ins/lb/en/ver.cfm?fuseaction=events.detail&event_id=21132768
Related info:
'Political, forensic, hi-tech: how 'research architecture' is redefining art', Guardian article by Elizabeth Fullerton: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jan/06/research-architecture-redefining-art-goldsmiths-london?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR0ohcEJxI-KY3M50ZiKktR3Mpj0ORz3mQtwDLSBave1sN6zp-QVLvmBQBg
‘The Architecture of Slow, Structural and Spectacular Violence and the Poetic Testimony of War’, written by Helene Kazan for the special issue on 'Gender, War, and Technology: Peace and Armed Conflict in the Twenty-First Century’, edited by Emily Jones, Sara Kendall & Yoriko Otomo for Australian Feminist Law Journal (2018): https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rfem20/current?nav=tocList
Conversation between Fari Bradley and Helene Kazan for ‘Six Pillars’ on Resonance FM, a focus on contemporary Middle Eastern, North African and South Asian sound, art and culture (2018): https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/six-pillars-june-27th-2018-curator-helene-kazan/
'Points of Contact’, sound piece by Helene Kazan for broadcast on Saout Radio, Documenta14 (2017): http://saoutradio.com/docs/pdf/Saout_Africa(s)_Program.pdf
Participants included: Shakeeb Abu Hamdan, George Arbid, Marwa Arsanios, Rayya Badran, Habib Battah, Vanessa Bowles, Hiba Farhat, Dima Hamadeh, Samar Kanafani, Helene Kazan, Jessika Khazrik, Fadi Mansour, Ayat Noureddine, Yoriko Otomo, Mohamed Safa, Rania Stephan, Sandra Schaefer.
The first experimental roundtable 'Body As Testimony, Poetics and Gender' paid particular attention to the effects of capitalism and conflict at the scale of the human body, observing changes in the architecture of the built environment that take place in response to this human bodily experience. This event further questioned how dominant methods of producing evidence or giving testimony can exclude or render the human body invisible. Proposing a possible turn towards the poetics of human testimony, this event asked questions in regards to method of engaging more inclusionary account of human bodily experience of this affect?
The second experimental roundtable ‘Built Between the Slow, the Structural and the Spectacular’ observed a spectrum of methods that attempt to capture and evidence the slow, structural and spectacular violent affects of capitalism and conflict, seen through transformations in the architecture of the built environment. Asking how does the lived built environment or the architecture of the domestic space becomes an archive of such transformations? Further questioning how planning methods becomes a way of speculating and projecting the affects of capitalism and conflict into the future?
For further information:
https://www.goethe.de/ins/lb/en/ver.cfm?fuseaction=events.detail&event_id=21132768
Related info:
'Political, forensic, hi-tech: how 'research architecture' is redefining art', Guardian article by Elizabeth Fullerton: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jan/06/research-architecture-redefining-art-goldsmiths-london?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR0ohcEJxI-KY3M50ZiKktR3Mpj0ORz3mQtwDLSBave1sN6zp-QVLvmBQBg
‘The Architecture of Slow, Structural and Spectacular Violence and the Poetic Testimony of War’, written by Helene Kazan for the special issue on 'Gender, War, and Technology: Peace and Armed Conflict in the Twenty-First Century’, edited by Emily Jones, Sara Kendall & Yoriko Otomo for Australian Feminist Law Journal (2018): https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rfem20/current?nav=tocList
Conversation between Fari Bradley and Helene Kazan for ‘Six Pillars’ on Resonance FM, a focus on contemporary Middle Eastern, North African and South Asian sound, art and culture (2018): https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/six-pillars-june-27th-2018-curator-helene-kazan/
'Points of Contact’, sound piece by Helene Kazan for broadcast on Saout Radio, Documenta14 (2017): http://saoutradio.com/docs/pdf/Saout_Africa(s)_Program.pdf