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22/2/2015

Unfinished Conversations

Beirut Art Center, Beirut

Beirut Art Center presents Unfinished Conversations, the first exhibition in its two-year program of exhibitions, events and educational activities, entitled Present Time.Ourselves. Unfinished Conversations is first and foremost an exhibition of films and videos that gathers the works of British artist John Akomfrah, French- Algerian artist Zineb Sedira, and South African artist Penny Siopis. A series of round tables will also be taking place during the exhibition.

The Unfinished Conversations project is a tribute to the late British and Caribbean thinker, cultural theorist and sociologist Stuart Hall (1932 -2014), who was one of the founders of the British concept of cultural studies, and co-founder of political magazine New Left Review. The works displayed here were chosen for the way in which they echo Hall’s conceptions. The constant motion of the films and the dispersion of speech refer to a central idea in his thinking: the necessary instability and multiple definitions of what is called identity. He conceived of the latter as a conversation “forever unfinished,” prone to the fluctuations of history and memory, and emanating from a constant exchange between oneself and others. This conception illuminates current discussions on racism and segregation, as well as different experiences of coexistence and dialogue.

The exhibition includes six distinct projections. The Unfinished Conversation (2012) is a three-channel video installation by John Akomfrah, based on Hall’s writings. Zineb Sedira’s installation Mother Tongue (2002) is a three-channel video installation that combines the issue of “mother” tongue and that of geographical and cultural displacement. She films her mother, her daughter and herself speaking the language of the country where they were raised: Arabic, English and French. Penny Siopis’ films, My Lovely Day, The Master is Drowning, Communion and Obscure White Messenger, exhume an impossible speech, or a discourse that was never held, giving voice to unlikely figures from the history of apartheid, thus defeating this system’s binary nature.

Unfinished Conversations furthermore constitutes an entry point to director Marie Muracciole’s program at Beirut Art Center. The exhibition underlines the idea that the sensory experience of the work of art always leads to the production of language and exchange, whether in the form of conversation, dialogue or interrogations. As part of this exhibition, talks and debates will serve to contextualize Hall’s approach in the MENA region.

The first of these talks will gather Akomfrah, Sedira and Siopis, to discuss their work. Beirut Art Center will thus inaugurate its first-floor space, dedicated to cultural programming and education. Artists, researchers and students will be free to engage with guests and visitors. In addition, the Beirut Art Center will inaugurate two screening programs. Morad Montazami, adjoint research curator for the Middle East at Tate Modern and co-curator of Unedited History. Iran 1960- 2014, will curate together with Andréa Lissoni, curator of film at Tate Modern a film program in partnership with Tate Modern. Another film program involving African cinema specialist and curator Keith Shiri will be announced soon.

Image: John Akomfrah, The Unfinished Conversation (2012), three screen installation, HD video, colour, sound, 45 min

Opening: Monday 23 February 2015, 6pm to 9pm

Beirut Art Center
Jisr El Wati - Off Corniche an Nahr. Building 13
Street 97, Zone 66 Adlieh Beirut, Lebanon
Opening Hours
From Monday to Saturday 12:00pm - 8:00pm

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