EYE’N UBU - LEBANON 2019
Hammana situation
Written by: Kaja Kraner and Lucija Smodiš
“/…/ That is to say, everything happens as if, in our culture, life were what cannot be defined, yet, precisely for this reason, must be ceaselessly articulated and divided.”
This is a quote of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, taken from his book The Open: Man and Animal. Slovenian artist, architect, and philosopher Tomo Stanič has chosen it as a starting point for the art intervention during the residential stay in Hammana Artist House. Using chalk, Stanič inscribed the quote on the terrace of Hammana Artist House in Italian, English, Slovenian, French, and Arabic. The languages were not chosen coincidently, for they were the languages actively used by all the residents at the time. The intervention titled “Response to the collaboration with Lebanese students during the residential stay in Hammana Artist House« can therefore be understood as a comment on an issue that is perhaps common within most of the artist-in-residency situations. On the one side, this comment is a reflection of the awareness of cultural differences between temporary neighbours or even flatmates. On the other side, it indicates an awareness of some additional layers of the existing differences between them, for instance, the language differences, the differences of art media in which artist are creating or expressing themselves, differences in characters etc. With the quote, Stanič wanted to expose the fact that culture (understood as a formed life) is not fixed. Consequently, this is the very reason the culture needs to be articulated over and over again. The Hammana Artist House serves, at least for Stanič, as a place for finding this determination, largely shaped by a necessity to find some common language between current co-habitants. With the quote and intervention, Stanič was also referring to a particular position of Slovenian artists that were present in Hammana Artist House during the 16th and 28th of April. Namely, each of them bringing a strong sense of their own identity, specifics, preferences, personal history etc. marking his or her way of expressing him/herself (through, but not exclusively, art) and being in the position to assist, help, mentor, co-work with or, in short, somehow engage with the Lebanese students whose working process started long before the Slovenians first arrived in Lebanon.
The idea of contemporary art, at least within the Slovenian cultural context since the 1990s, was and still is, highly marked with an awareness of the importance of the context. Namely an awareness that there is no autonomous artwork that would somehow contain the meaning / message and afford to communicate it to the viewer in an unmediated way. Contemporary art was therefore articulated as some supposedly specific art form, approach or even an epoch through the critique of the modernist idea of an autonomous artwork. Modernist idea of an artwork was therefore gradually replaced with an idea that viewer is the one that articulates the meaning in communication with an artwork and that the artwork is accordingly influenced by viewers personal, cultural, historical, social etc. predeterminations. Since the aim of this text is to offer some reflections on the artworks created by Lebanese students, our first question was how can we access the context that formed their artistic intentions. Most of the created artworks attempted to reflect on specific political, social and historical context of Lebanon that is to us, Slovenian residents, known only partially, mostly through all of the personal perspectives and views we shared during numerous conversations with the students, artists, mentors and others we encountered during our stay in Hammana.
Nataša Berk, Enej Gala, Tomo Stanič: Response to the collaboration with Lebanese students during the residential stay in Hammana Artist House, quote from The Open: Man and Animal by Giorgio Agamben, chalk on ground, 2019.
“Cultural, ethnical, personal etc. identities here (ie. in Lebanon), are being formed through the differences,” was one of the most often common statements of our Lebanese friends and coworkers, who were attempting to explain the Lebanese cultural context in which we are currently meeting. Which is, at least in comparison with the Slovenian context, really multicultural, multi-religious etc. society. Society in which particular identity is being formed in relation to another, as well as its differences, ie. is also variable according to its surrounding. The latter if inevitably the case in general, but the Lebanese context – again: at least for us, Slovenians – makes this process very obvious and clear. Since there is necessarily a cultural barrier that we were not able to fully comprehend in this short period of time, regardless of the information we were given about the specificities of Lebanese context, its history, political past as well as the present, we decided to somehow locate common ground or situatedness of the – let us say – cultural gaze and some of its consequences. We were therefore also talking with some of the Lebanese students about how they understand the work they have created and even prepared a short questionnaire that was send to some of the students to answer. Questions were addressing the artworks (students were asked to describe their artwork to someone who cannot see it), the content of the work (“What does each of the particular artwork address and what is your personal opinion about the subject?«) as well as intentions of the artists that led them to create those particular pieces in that way (»What do you think this artwork can change / how can it effect the viewer and why?«).
One of the answers described first exhibited artwork titled “The Red Carpet” as “filled with dirty and used clothes stitched together to become flat and similar to the one celebrities usually walk on.” She also pointed out that “it’s surprising to see that’s a red carpet but a trashy and dirty one, it makes us think how sometimes we crave unnecessary thing and that we have some behaviors that are man-made. Therefore trash also is man-made since nature is filled now with our leftovers. It’s a walk of shame, shame on us, human being for not knowing what’s worth to keep and that always the first idea that comes to our mind is to throw away everything without thinking that maybe one day, we will use them.“ In relation to this particular artwork as well as all of the rest, the focus on the pollution, trash (in the widest sense) as well as environmental crisis in Lebanon and wider, most be explained at least to some extent. Namely, it was a predetermined common subject for Lebanese students and Slovenian artist, a sort of minimum common point to start their dialogue and exchange that was suggested by the curators before Slovenians arrived to Lebanon. As said, the aim of this minimal common point was to facilitate cooperative process easily, and therefore all of the created can also be seen as a comment on the mentioned subject.
“The Red Carpet” was basically working because of the specificity of the site where it was placed. Namely, it was installed in front of the buildings entrance of Hammana Artist House, starting on the streets pavement and reaching towards the marble surface surrounding the closest part to the newly renovated building. In the same way also an interpretation of the work was transitioning, starting from the pavement and the association to some sort of moment of crisis for example, poverty or some other situation in which the people are forced to leave clothes behind, or are not able or motivated to pick them up. Contrary to that, the continuation of the visual narration on the marble with which all of the Hammana Artist House floors are covered, worked as a foreign object concluding and exposing the idea of the work which was aiming to give the voice to the oppressed, poor and marginalized groups of population. The placement of an artwork therefore exposed or even intensified the contrast between the theme that was addressed by it, and the exhibition context, namely newly renovated old house, filled with designer furniture and other fancy equipment, for which a lot of (private) resources have been used. This intensification by its placement can therefore, at least to some extent, also be understood as a comment on the existing differences in Lebanese society.
“Cultural, ethnical, personal etc. identities here (ie. in Lebanon), are being formed through the differences,” was one of the most often common statements of our Lebanese friends and coworkers, who were attempting to explain the Lebanese cultural context in which we are currently meeting. Which is, at least in comparison with the Slovenian context, really multicultural, multi-religious etc. society. Society in which particular identity is being formed in relation to another, as well as its differences, ie. is also variable according to its surrounding. The latter if inevitably the case in general, but the Lebanese context – again: at least for us, Slovenians – makes this process very obvious and clear. Since there is necessarily a cultural barrier that we were not able to fully comprehend in this short period of time, regardless of the information we were given about the specificities of Lebanese context, its history, political past as well as the present, we decided to somehow locate common ground or situatedness of the – let us say – cultural gaze and some of its consequences. We were therefore also talking with some of the Lebanese students about how they understand the work they have created and even prepared a short questionnaire that was send to some of the students to answer. Questions were addressing the artworks (students were asked to describe their artwork to someone who cannot see it), the content of the work (“What does each of the particular artwork address and what is your personal opinion about the subject?«) as well as intentions of the artists that led them to create those particular pieces in that way (»What do you think this artwork can change / how can it effect the viewer and why?«).
One of the answers described first exhibited artwork titled “The Red Carpet” as “filled with dirty and used clothes stitched together to become flat and similar to the one celebrities usually walk on.” She also pointed out that “it’s surprising to see that’s a red carpet but a trashy and dirty one, it makes us think how sometimes we crave unnecessary thing and that we have some behaviors that are man-made. Therefore trash also is man-made since nature is filled now with our leftovers. It’s a walk of shame, shame on us, human being for not knowing what’s worth to keep and that always the first idea that comes to our mind is to throw away everything without thinking that maybe one day, we will use them.“ In relation to this particular artwork as well as all of the rest, the focus on the pollution, trash (in the widest sense) as well as environmental crisis in Lebanon and wider, most be explained at least to some extent. Namely, it was a predetermined common subject for Lebanese students and Slovenian artist, a sort of minimum common point to start their dialogue and exchange that was suggested by the curators before Slovenians arrived to Lebanon. As said, the aim of this minimal common point was to facilitate cooperative process easily, and therefore all of the created can also be seen as a comment on the mentioned subject.
“The Red Carpet” was basically working because of the specificity of the site where it was placed. Namely, it was installed in front of the buildings entrance of Hammana Artist House, starting on the streets pavement and reaching towards the marble surface surrounding the closest part to the newly renovated building. In the same way also an interpretation of the work was transitioning, starting from the pavement and the association to some sort of moment of crisis for example, poverty or some other situation in which the people are forced to leave clothes behind, or are not able or motivated to pick them up. Contrary to that, the continuation of the visual narration on the marble with which all of the Hammana Artist House floors are covered, worked as a foreign object concluding and exposing the idea of the work which was aiming to give the voice to the oppressed, poor and marginalized groups of population. The placement of an artwork therefore exposed or even intensified the contrast between the theme that was addressed by it, and the exhibition context, namely newly renovated old house, filled with designer furniture and other fancy equipment, for which a lot of (private) resources have been used. This intensification by its placement can therefore, at least to some extent, also be understood as a comment on the existing differences in Lebanese society.
The Red Carpet, installation, 2019, Team: Perla Chaaya, Magaly Jabbour, Elie Azzi, Frederick Zreik, Joanne Nehme, Joy Sfeir, Team Leader: Charbel Samuel Aoun
The reference to the working class or the poor was also present in the second artwork Lebanese students did with their mentor Charbel Samuel Aoun titled “Scattered Selves”. One of the Lebanese students for instance exposed the use of particular empty cans of beer within the installation, namely the beer called “Efes”, that is “one of the cheapest beer that any human being could afford.” Beer cans were an integral part of a floor sound installation and were used as amplifiers, surrounded with stones. This particular beer mark was off course not chosen randomly since it was connected to the source of sound. Namely, the sound of the installation was composed from the voices of interviewed persons; Hammana residents that the students interviewed of the streets, asking them about their loses. Or as Charbel Samuel Aoun, poetically described: “Walking on the destructed gravel and stones, footsteps sounds mixed with voices of people coming from down below. Below as a space of dream and reality, sucks attention down, bends the body and attracts the knees, trace clothes with white powder and offers a consciousness about those who has lost, lost homes, families, land, countries… a grounded reality that goes deep into sorrow and pain, pain getting out of these bottles, but also pain when going to reach. A common skin made of hard and fragile exchanging unheard realities.”
The reference to the working class or the poor was also present in the second artwork Lebanese students did with their mentor Charbel Samuel Aoun titled “Scattered Selves”. One of the Lebanese students for instance exposed the use of particular empty cans of beer within the installation, namely the beer called “Efes”, that is “one of the cheapest beer that any human being could afford.” Beer cans were an integral part of a floor sound installation and were used as amplifiers, surrounded with stones. This particular beer mark was off course not chosen randomly since it was connected to the source of sound. Namely, the sound of the installation was composed from the voices of interviewed persons; Hammana residents that the students interviewed of the streets, asking them about their loses. Or as Charbel Samuel Aoun, poetically described: “Walking on the destructed gravel and stones, footsteps sounds mixed with voices of people coming from down below. Below as a space of dream and reality, sucks attention down, bends the body and attracts the knees, trace clothes with white powder and offers a consciousness about those who has lost, lost homes, families, land, countries… a grounded reality that goes deep into sorrow and pain, pain getting out of these bottles, but also pain when going to reach. A common skin made of hard and fragile exchanging unheard realities.”
Scattered Selves, installation, 2019, Team: Perla Chaaya, Magaly Jabbour, Elie Azzi, Frederick Zreik, Joanne Nehme, Joy Sfeir, Team Leader: Charbel Samuel Aoun
The installation as a whole, like the first, established a big contrast to the surrounding of the Hammana Artist House “polished” infrastructure. If the installation would be interpreted as an site-specific or context related work, it could be read as a metaphor of the status of cultural institutions such as Hammana Artist House within specific, in this case rural, environment. Or, more generally, the position of politicized contemporary artworks and institutions beyond their own social bubble. From a curators point of view also an interesting point of contemplation could be framed by the questions such as: were the interviewees invited to the exhibition, do they understand why were they even recorded, how would they feel if they knew that their voice came from the cans of cheap beer, presented as trash on the ground etc. Namely, the answering on some of those questions could offer an interesting insight into mentioned logic of politicized contemporary art projects, very oftenly deriving from marginalized social groups situation and displaying it within a contemporary art social bubble – off course with the good intentions that nevertheless have oftenly a slightly paternalistic effect.
The third sound installation titled “Dreams in Time” was positioned in an emptied room filled with pine branches with the bed in the middle. In this case the sound was coming out of a pillow laid on the bed and surrounded with the trumpet and the gun on each side. Sound was also a smaller part of an interview with the Hammana local, ex-soldier in Lebanese forces that was talking about his dreams and how they were changing during particular periods of his life (to the large extend, in the close relation to different war situations). The pine branches that surrounded this poetic “report” about the changing dreams of the interviewed, closely related to his desires and longings in the specific political and social situation his country was in, were chosen foremost because of the ending of an interview: “I wouldn’t want to be the earth, because if something impure pours into it, it adapts. I would prefer to be a tree, because if impurities get to it, it dies.”
The installation as a whole, like the first, established a big contrast to the surrounding of the Hammana Artist House “polished” infrastructure. If the installation would be interpreted as an site-specific or context related work, it could be read as a metaphor of the status of cultural institutions such as Hammana Artist House within specific, in this case rural, environment. Or, more generally, the position of politicized contemporary artworks and institutions beyond their own social bubble. From a curators point of view also an interesting point of contemplation could be framed by the questions such as: were the interviewees invited to the exhibition, do they understand why were they even recorded, how would they feel if they knew that their voice came from the cans of cheap beer, presented as trash on the ground etc. Namely, the answering on some of those questions could offer an interesting insight into mentioned logic of politicized contemporary art projects, very oftenly deriving from marginalized social groups situation and displaying it within a contemporary art social bubble – off course with the good intentions that nevertheless have oftenly a slightly paternalistic effect.
The third sound installation titled “Dreams in Time” was positioned in an emptied room filled with pine branches with the bed in the middle. In this case the sound was coming out of a pillow laid on the bed and surrounded with the trumpet and the gun on each side. Sound was also a smaller part of an interview with the Hammana local, ex-soldier in Lebanese forces that was talking about his dreams and how they were changing during particular periods of his life (to the large extend, in the close relation to different war situations). The pine branches that surrounded this poetic “report” about the changing dreams of the interviewed, closely related to his desires and longings in the specific political and social situation his country was in, were chosen foremost because of the ending of an interview: “I wouldn’t want to be the earth, because if something impure pours into it, it adapts. I would prefer to be a tree, because if impurities get to it, it dies.”
Dreams in Time, installation, 2019, Team: Perla Chaaya, Magaly Jabbour, Elie Azzi, Frederick Zreik, Joanne Nehme, Joy Sfeir, Team Leader: Charbel Samuel Aoun
In the case of another exhibited artworks, collages of student on the USEK University Maya Abi Semaan, the work process is perhaps the key to understand the artworks themselves: “I have always had an obsession and fascination for the objects left behind. I always felt that they belonged to me. I started collecting since the age of 7, the first object was a door lock that I found while helping my grandfather. I wanted to find myself between these objects, I wanted to make sense of them. All these pieces had taken place where this question always remained: Who am I? I am this painful interval, between my memory and that of others. I was always looking for this child within them, who had left his toy which I found. Maybe one day they will find me.” As Abi Semaan was explaining, this obsession with the “objects left behind” or “trash” changes radically when she takes them from their primal environment and puts them together in order to create an artwork. Namely, in this moment she can finally get rid of the things she is obsessively collecting, she can let them go, which is also the reason her work process can be, at least to some point, understood as a sort of therapeutic activity. Since her assemblages consisting of visual 3D objects and textual cutouts are obviously very personal and intimate, the hallway to the living spaces in HAH was chosen for exhibiting it. The hallway created an appropriate atmosphere that allowed the viewer to face it in an intimate way as well as explore it since her artworks are meant to be interacted with physically.
In the case of another exhibited artworks, collages of student on the USEK University Maya Abi Semaan, the work process is perhaps the key to understand the artworks themselves: “I have always had an obsession and fascination for the objects left behind. I always felt that they belonged to me. I started collecting since the age of 7, the first object was a door lock that I found while helping my grandfather. I wanted to find myself between these objects, I wanted to make sense of them. All these pieces had taken place where this question always remained: Who am I? I am this painful interval, between my memory and that of others. I was always looking for this child within them, who had left his toy which I found. Maybe one day they will find me.” As Abi Semaan was explaining, this obsession with the “objects left behind” or “trash” changes radically when she takes them from their primal environment and puts them together in order to create an artwork. Namely, in this moment she can finally get rid of the things she is obsessively collecting, she can let them go, which is also the reason her work process can be, at least to some point, understood as a sort of therapeutic activity. Since her assemblages consisting of visual 3D objects and textual cutouts are obviously very personal and intimate, the hallway to the living spaces in HAH was chosen for exhibiting it. The hallway created an appropriate atmosphere that allowed the viewer to face it in an intimate way as well as explore it since her artworks are meant to be interacted with physically.
Open up they said, collage 2019 ,Life and nothing more, collage 2019, It helps to have hope, collage 2019, The less I know the better,collage 2019, Futile devices, collage 2019, What's in a name, collage 2019.
In the same hallway to the living spaces of HAH Abi Semaan work was exhibited, there was also a video of Slovene interdisciplinary artist Nataša Berk. Berk, who oftenly publicly presents her work through alternative identities, exhibited the work titled “Hammana Situation”, signed by Hildegard Stein for the sound and Ernst Tillner for the video, displayed her work in the toilet of the very same hallway. Narrow space of the toilet with the lights off created a intimate cinematic atmosphere since only one viewer at a time was allowed to enter. The video theme was inspired by an visual emptiness that was evoking trillery atmosphere showing natural environment around HAH. The video was manipulating the viewer through the suspension of expectation of some dramatical event, but finally left the viewer in the darkness.
In the same hallway to the living spaces of HAH Abi Semaan work was exhibited, there was also a video of Slovene interdisciplinary artist Nataša Berk. Berk, who oftenly publicly presents her work through alternative identities, exhibited the work titled “Hammana Situation”, signed by Hildegard Stein for the sound and Ernst Tillner for the video, displayed her work in the toilet of the very same hallway. Narrow space of the toilet with the lights off created a intimate cinematic atmosphere since only one viewer at a time was allowed to enter. The video theme was inspired by an visual emptiness that was evoking trillery atmosphere showing natural environment around HAH. The video was manipulating the viewer through the suspension of expectation of some dramatical event, but finally left the viewer in the darkness.
Hildegard Stein (sound), Ernst Tillner (video): Hammana Situation, video, 1:55 (loop), 2019.
The format of residential stay was based on collaboration between students, university professors and already established artist, which is a continuation of activity led by Miha Vipotnik in the last 5 years (Vertical collisions (LB), In medias Res (LB), Two good listeners make a piece with silence (SL), One shows oneself but to the Other (SL)). Such workshop based processes reveal its importance in the exchange of knowledge, experience, interdisciplinarity and intercultural dialog that enables to expand and deepen the process of creation, conceptualization, as well as different aspects of the interpretation based on the cultural and social background of the viewer.
Hammana Artist House is a functional, heterogenous unit consisting of the living, working and production space, that is, of course, anything but content unconfined, and became an inevitable part of many site related works created and presented there. We could say, the final product of this two weeks long co-working situation cannot be comprehended as a totality with a common theme, focus or method, but more as a knot that spreads into different directions. Above mentioned pieces were also only few of the activities as well as final products which were created during this time. In collaboration with Slovenian artist and illustrator Enej Gala (Japet), students were working on a Facebook project that tried to regularly document activities that were going on during the residency, students of a cinema and television department in Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, were working on a documentation film in collaboration with Nataša Berk as well as trailers for the final project in the form of theatre play of the students from different departments staging Alfred Jarry’s King Ubu. A significant part of the whole project represented was therefore also documenting, archiving, creative PR and social media promotion, that can be to some extent also seen as an extended platform for presenting art. This anyway combines a very practical aspect, which is public relations and promotion with all the crazy youthful creativity that sometimes maybe led just to amusement of social media audiences that at the end didn’t have a clue about what really was going on in Hammana. But maybe the important thing is just to figure out as many ways in which the things can be done, gain the experiences, which with time will transform into applicable knowledge.
The format of residential stay was based on collaboration between students, university professors and already established artist, which is a continuation of activity led by Miha Vipotnik in the last 5 years (Vertical collisions (LB), In medias Res (LB), Two good listeners make a piece with silence (SL), One shows oneself but to the Other (SL)). Such workshop based processes reveal its importance in the exchange of knowledge, experience, interdisciplinarity and intercultural dialog that enables to expand and deepen the process of creation, conceptualization, as well as different aspects of the interpretation based on the cultural and social background of the viewer.
Hammana Artist House is a functional, heterogenous unit consisting of the living, working and production space, that is, of course, anything but content unconfined, and became an inevitable part of many site related works created and presented there. We could say, the final product of this two weeks long co-working situation cannot be comprehended as a totality with a common theme, focus or method, but more as a knot that spreads into different directions. Above mentioned pieces were also only few of the activities as well as final products which were created during this time. In collaboration with Slovenian artist and illustrator Enej Gala (Japet), students were working on a Facebook project that tried to regularly document activities that were going on during the residency, students of a cinema and television department in Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, were working on a documentation film in collaboration with Nataša Berk as well as trailers for the final project in the form of theatre play of the students from different departments staging Alfred Jarry’s King Ubu. A significant part of the whole project represented was therefore also documenting, archiving, creative PR and social media promotion, that can be to some extent also seen as an extended platform for presenting art. This anyway combines a very practical aspect, which is public relations and promotion with all the crazy youthful creativity that sometimes maybe led just to amusement of social media audiences that at the end didn’t have a clue about what really was going on in Hammana. But maybe the important thing is just to figure out as many ways in which the things can be done, gain the experiences, which with time will transform into applicable knowledge.
Japet, Bros&Cons, digital interventions on photos, 2019