Arthub Favorite: Week 128

Ashkal Alwan Celebrating Its 25 years

Duration: 2018 December 14 – 18
Venue: 1st Floor, Building 110, Street 90, Jisr el Wati, Beirut, Lebanon

Ashkal Alwan – The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts will conduct an array of new platforms and programs over the next couple of months, marking 25 years since the organization’s inception. Embedded in Lebanon and the wider region, Ashkal Alwan has been committed to facilitating artistic production, fostering critical thinking around contemporary discourses and realities, and engaging in community mobilization. Ashkal Alwan began in 1993 as an informal network of artists, writers, educators, activists, and cultural practitioners in Beirut who sought to reclaim their city by way of communal intellectual endeavors and artistic interventions in public spaces.

In celebration of its 25th anniversary, Ashkal Alwan will be hosting an exhibition, followed by a benefit auction, featuring 39 artists who have been an integral part of the organization’s history, ranging from past and recent collaborators to recent alumni of its annual study program: Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Etel Adnan, Haig Aivazian, Monira Al Qadiri, Tamara Al-Samerraei, Mounira Al Solh, Doa Aly, Ahmed Badry, Tony Chakar, Ali Cherri, Mandy El-Sayegh, İnci Eviner, Daniele Genadry, Ahmad Ghossein, Saba Innab, Iman Issa, Lamia Joreige, Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Samir Khaddaje, Mahmoud Khaled, Maha Maamoun, Rabih Mroué, Oscar Murillo, Joe Namy, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Walid Raad, Khalil Rabah, Raqs Media Collective, Marwan Rechmaoui, Stéphanie Saadé, Walid Sadek, Roy Samaha, Setareh Shahbazi, Rania Stephan, Rayyane Tabet, Raed Yassin, Ala Younis, and Akram Zaatari.

The works have been generously donated by the artists, in support of Ashkal Alwan’s first benefit auction, aiming to raise resources for the continuation of its programs in the coming years, keeping them accessible and free of charge.

In addition, Ashkal Alwan launched aashra, an open-access video streaming platform offering viewers audiovisual works that are either out of circulation or rarely screened outside of biennial and festival circuits. The platform will make available a rotating selection of ten films and videos produced by Ashkal Alwan, as well as works chosen specifically for their artistic, historical, and political relevance.

The films and videos currently available for streaming are by artists and filmmakers Maher Abi Samra, Mounira Al Solh, Marwa Arsanios, Ali Cherri, Roy Dib, Nesrine Khodr, Lina Majdalanie, Raed & Rania Rafei, Roy Samaha, and Akram Zaatari.

Ashkal Alwan will soon make available an online open-access platform that will host the association’s extensive archive, giving the public access to Terabytes of digital recordings. This archival material will be activated through a series of public programs and activities, while artists, researchers, and curators will be invited to engage with Ashkal Alwan’s collection through their own practice.

For more details about Ashkal Alwan and its 25 years anniversary agenda, please click here.