Monday, February 2 2015, 6 pm
Marwa Arsanios, artist talk in conjunction with the exhibition All Tomorrow´s Past
The work of Marwa Arsanios attempts to investigate certain histories, stories and political projects that have manifested themselves through architecture, printed matter, text and language in general. Her interest is to explore a personal position in relation to these collective projects, often restaging events, reconstituting projects, directly intervening on archives or exploring collectivities. It takes the form of films, installations, performances, reading groups and project space. Arsanios often collaborates with authors, actors and performance artists. Through a strategy of collecting and archiving, the artist examines historic traces relating to the modernization of the Arabic states in the 1960s. Her focus is amongst others on urban planning in Lebanon’s capital Beirut, where she reinterprets buildings, publications and events in a process of study and appropriation. Hovering on the boundary between reality and fiction, the resulting work is a series of archival installations, texts, films and performances that reflect on the contemporary politico- social issues in the Middle East and elsewhere from a historical perspective.
Together with Mirene Arsanios, Marwa is the founding member and active programmer of the artist organization and project space 98weeks. Founded in 2007, it is conceived as a research project that shifts its attention to a new topic every 98 weeks. Combining theory and practice, 98weeks understands research as an open-ended activity, involving collaboration and an inter-disciplinary approach to art making. 98weeks’ projects take multiple forms such as workshops, talks, screenings, seminars, reading groups, publications and exhibitions.
Marwa Arsanios lives and works in Beirut, Lebanon. She obtained her MFA from University of the Arts, London and was a researcher in the Fine Art department at the Jan Van Eyck Academie. She has exhibited internationally in London, Beirut, Athens, Oxford, Lisboa, Santiago de Chile, Rome, Damascus and recently at Kunsthalle Lissabon and MuKHA in Antwerp. Her work was shown at Art Dubai in the Bidoun Lounge (Art Park 2009), at the Forum expanded of the Berlinale (2010), at the Homeworks V and VI forum in Beirut, Tokyo Wonder Site in Tokyo (2011), the 12th Istanbul Biennale (2011), the Cornerhouse in Manchester (2012) and at the Venice biennial (Future Generation Art Prize), Rio de Janeiro film festival in 2010, the e-flux storefront in New York and at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. She has been nominated for the Pinchuk Future Generation Art Prize 2012 and won the special prize. She was also nominated for the Sovereign Art Prize 2012.