Reality in the Real: A Video Installation

Albedo Creative Platform and Foundation for Art and Psychoanalysis present an exhibition of Gilbert Hage's Reality in the Real at KED, Beirut

16 – 30 November 2021
KED
Emile Lahoud Highway, Karantina, Beirut

Albedo Creative Platform, in collaboration with the Foundation for Art and Psychoanalysis (FAP), presents Reality in the Real: A Video Installation by photographer Gilbert Hage. Hage’s first moving image work was originally presented online as part of FAP’s Oral History Collection, which aims to create an archive that makes it possible for future generations to engage in plural perspectives.

In his work, Hage speaks to Lebanese artists in the aftermath of the explosion in the Port of Beirut. The portrayed subjects relate their private encounters with the blast, and explore its broader impact on the history of their country and their personal lives.

Presented for the first time in a physical location, the video installation proposes the online project as a shared, spatial event, where the videos are experienced collectively as sounds and images reverberating in space, the constant relevance of their contextual significance intermeshing with KED’s particular historical significance.

KED is a multi-arts performance and exhibition space in Quarantina, a district of Beirut that witnessed the capital’s most turbulent episodes. First a central camp housing Armenians fleeing the Ottoman genocide, Quarantina was the site of the bloody 1976 massacre, and more recently suffered the devastating ravages of the August 4 explosion. Its name, meaning “river” in Armenian, references a flowing river that brings life to its surrounding lands and communities, as KED aims to do through the arts.

The exhibition opens on Tuesday November 16, 2021 from 06:00 to 10:00 pm. The exhibition runs until November 30, 2021. Text by Joumana Seikaly.

Gilbert Hage was born in Lebanon, in 1966. He lives, works, and teaches in Lebanon. Hage’s photographic projects include Toufican Zombies? (2021), The Earth Is Like a Child That Knows Poems by Heart (2020), Things Will Happen Elsewhere. Things Are Always Happening (2019), The Place That Remains (2018), What If Celine Jiged On The Right Flute? (2017), I Hated You Already Because of the Lies I Had Told You (2011), Why Do We Feel Like Kafka? (2011), Eleven Views of Mount Ararat (2009), Strings (aka With Strings Attached) (2008), Pillows (2007), Screening Berlin (2006), 242 cm2 (2006), Homeland 1(aka Toufican Ruins?) (2006), Phone [Ethics] (2006), Here and Now (2004), Beirut (2004), Anonymous (2002), and 28 Roses b/w (1999). Alongside Jalal Toufic, Hage is the co-editor and co-director of Underexposed Books.

Ziad Abillama has lived and worked in Lebanon for the past twenty-two years. Since returning from his studies in the US, Abillama has executed works as a way to rethink the Lebanese Civil War. His approach is not totalising or seeking to blame a specific party. Rather, the artist finds it important to reflect on violence while avoiding politics.

Lina Abyad is an Associate Professor at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. She staged around 40 plays. Several themes haunt her stage: the Lebanese civil war, women, Palestine, and the Arab dictatorships. The theatre she creates is socially and politically engaged with controversial issues surrounding the MENA region.

Rasha Al Ameer is a novelist: Judgment Day translated into English, French and Italian. A publisher: Dar al Jadeed a Renaissance press with a radical catalogue. A linguist: Kitab al Hamza to adapt Arabic to modern times.

Rita Awn is a Lebanese visual artist, based in Beirut. She studied at the National Superior School of Fine Arts in Paris, France. Since 1994, Awn has worked in the fields of painting, sculpture, video installation, digital imaging, and digital animation. She depicts the human figure, exploring the ways in which it progresses towards critical thresholds.

Ara Azad Barsoumian dit Ara Azad is an American/Lebanese artist of Armenian lineage. He is a graduate from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Tufts University, Medford, and the Institute for Global Leadership (EPIIC 95) Massachusetts, USA. He lives and works in Boston and Beirut.

Tony Chakar is a Lebanese artist, architect and storyteller, whose work incorporates literature, philosophy, and theory. His latest solo show, As in a Beginning, was held at the Van Abbemuseum in 2018. His latest group show was the 2019 exhibition Wednesday Society: The couch of Meret O. He teaches Architecture and Art at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA – UOB).

Ralph Doumit was born in 1985 in Beirut. Doumit is a graduate in comics from the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts. He is an author and illustrator of comics, novels, and albums. He teaches Comics, Comic Book History and History of Images at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts. He is a cultural journalist.

Charbel Haber is a Lebanese musician, performer, composer and visual artist from Beirut. His work has seen him collaborate with artists from a wide range of disciplines—film, video art, visual art, and theatre—both in Lebanon and abroad.

Rola El Hussein is a Lebanese writer. Born in 1978, she graduated from the Lebanese University’s Faculty of Art in 2003. Published 4 poetry collections and 2 novels. Never stopped painting since graduation, yet never had a solo exhibition. Hussein has lived and worked abroad since 2003. In 2021, she plans to return to Lebanon to live, paint, and write.

Hisham Jaber is the founder and Artistic Director of the theatre company Metro Al Madina. Jaber wrote and directed Cola, Barbir, Mathaf, Dawra (2002), Solo or Solo (2003), Arabic Bread (2005), The Death of Najib Brax (2005), and Not For Public (2008). Since 2013, he has been working on the production Hishik Bishik Show. Bar Farouk (2015) and The Political Circus Show (2017), with more than 100 artists, have both premiered at Beiteddine International Festival.

Abed Al Kadiri is a Lebanese multidisciplinary artist, curator, and publisher. He was born in Beirut. Al Kadiri double majored in Arabic Literature and Fine Arts. His work focuses on the deprivation of freedom in society by analyzing contemporary issues of violence, cultural heritage, migration, and belonging. He has been awarded the Sursock Museum 32nd Salon d’automne, and has held several solo and group exhibitions locally and internationally.

Toufic Kerbage is a musicologist specialized in Pearl Diver music. He collaborated for two decades in workshops of modern classical composers. Kerbage taught history and theory of Western and Levantine music respectively, and their cross influences. He has worked as editor and co-editor of many writings on Levantine and Mediterranean music, as well as on sound design and music for short films.

Marwa Khalil studied Theatre and Film Directing in Lebanon, Paris and New York. She worked on stage and then went into cinema and television. Khalil acted in Lebanon and in Morocco, also taking part in foreign films in France and in the US. In addition to her work as an actress, Khalil has produced and co-written more than five stage plays.

Charif Majdalani is a Lebanese writer and novelist. Born in Beirut in 1960, he has published eight novels in French, which have been translated into seven languages. He is a Professor at Saint-Joseph University, a member of L’Orient littéraire’s editorial board and President of the International Writers’ House in Beirut.

Ricardo Mbarkho is a Lebanese artist, researcher, and assistant professor. In his work, he investigates the transformation of cultural industries into creative industries in the digitalization age. Ricardo Mbarkho holds a PhD in Information and Communication Sciences, a Masters in Visual Arts, and a Bachelor in Film Studies.

Nour Ouayda is a filmmaker, film critic and programmer. She is a co-editor of the Montreal-based online film journal Hors champ. She is deputy director at Metropolis Cinema Association in Beirut. Her films and writing research the practice of drifting in cinema.

Alexandre Paulikevitch was born in Beirut in 1982. He moved to Paris in 2000 and graduated from the University of Paris 8 with a degree in Theatre and Dance. Paulikevitch has been living in Beirut since 2006, creating spaces of reflection on ‘Baladi Dance’—commonly known as ‘Belly Dance’—through his work as a teacher and performer.

Rania Rafei is a Lebanese Beirut-based film director and artist. She holds a diploma in Cinema Studies. She directed many documentaries covering social and political subjects. She also wrote and directed short fiction films, video essays, installations and an award-winning feature film titled 74, the reconstitution of a struggle.

Mohammad El Rawas was born in Beirut in 1951. He studied at the Lebanese University and at Slade School of Fine Art. In 1981, El Rawas started teaching at the Lebanese University and at the American University of Beirut. He has held twelve solo exhibitions and has participated in more than forty international art biennials and fairs.

Nadia Safieddine was born in 1973. She received a BFA in Painting from the Lebanese University in 1997. Between 2002 and 2012, Safieddine lived in Berlin, where she showed her work in solo and group exhibitions. She now lives and works in Beirut, where she is represented by Agial Art Gallery.

Ghassan Salhab was born in Dakar, Senegal. He has directed seven feature films—Beyrouth Fantôme, Terra Incognita, The Last Man, 1958, The Mountain, The Valley and An open Rose/Warda—in addition to numerous ‘essays’, including (Posthumous) and Chinese ink… Salhab has also published different texts and articles, as well as the book fragments du Livre du naufrage.

Mohamed Soueid, born in 1959 in Beirut, Lebanon, is a writer, director, and producer. He is currently the head of the documentary department at Al Arabiya News Channel. He has directed several films and written three books: Postponed Cinema - Lebanese Films During the Civil War (1986), O Heart - A Film Autobiography On The Late Movie Theatres Of Old Beirut (1996), and the novel Cabaret Souad (2004).

Caroline Tabet is a Beirut-born photographer and video artist. Tabet’s practice revolves around the relationship between urban landscape and human trajectories, as well as notions of memory and loss. In 2003, she co-founded Engram collective, in collaboration with Lebanese photographer Joanna Andraos. Tabet’s work has been exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions.

Nadim Tabet is a Lebanese director. He co-founded the Lebanese Film Festival, which is held every two years in Beirut, and has worked as a film programmer for several festivals in Europe. In 2016, Tabet directed his first feature film, One of these days. He is currently preparing his new feature, Under Construction, as well as a series called Faraya.

Nadine Touma is an award-winning polymath, author, artist, publisher, pedagogue, and a teller of tales. In 2006, she and Sivine Ariss co-founded Dar Onboz, a multidisciplinary creative platform producing Arabic publications, films, songs, performances, educational tools, games, objects, and exhibitions for the young and not so young, winning 34 international awards.

Alain Vassoyan grew up in Lebanon, within an environment where all contradictions were possible. Today, as a contemporary visual artist, Vassoyan gathers all these contradictions, employing playful and colourful characters, through which he explores themes of war, love and sexuality.

Hala Younes is an architect, geographer, and educator. In her practice, she takes a close look at the history of territories in order to initiate the design process. She created in 2018 the first Lebanese National Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale under the title The Place That Remains.