Along with Lynn Kodeih's upcoming residency at Makan, the artist was given  “carte-blanche” to present a video-screening program of her choice.

In these works, the concern of communicating the no-longer transmittable, unspoken secrets, images, language and silence transfer the personal perception of what remains.
Here the subjective and intimate replaces the official discourse, hence retracting what we call collective memory.
Sometimes blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality, the personal and the public, these video works invite us to a poetic encounter with artists coming from the aftermath.

La Traverse (2007)
Sirine Fattouh
12’42’’ (no dialogue)

An experimental video about the actual tensions in Lebanon during the summer of 2007. This video does not attempt to denounce, nor criticize; it presents Fattouh’s perception of a country that has been in constant conflict for the past 30 years. There are neither narrative nor fictive elements; the images are fragments that are taken directly from reality.

Sirine Fattouh is a Lebanese artist, born in Beirut in 1980 and living in Paris.

Far from denunciating, her work questions the responsibility of the artist towards political and social events. Since 2005, Fattouh teaches arts at the Université Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne, where she is also part of the Centre d’Études et de Recherches en Arts Plastiques, the CÉRAP and a PhD candidate.

We began by measuring distance (2009)
Basma Al Sharif
19’ (Arabic with English subtitles)

Long still frames, text, language and sound are weaved together to unfold the narrative of an anonymous group who fill their time by measuring distance. Innocent measurements become political ones, drawing an examination of how image and sound communicate history, tragedy, and the complication of Palestinian nationalism. We Began By Measuring Distance explores the ultimate disenchantment with facts when the visual fails to communicate the tragic.

Born in 1983 in Kuwait. Basma’s work has been shown at: Rencontres Internationales Centre Pompidou, Homeland: Exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Centre of Southern Australia, the 9th edition of the Sharjah Biennial awarded 2nd Jury Prize, Ann Harbor Palestine Film Festival, Chicago Palestine Film Festival Gene Siskel Film Center, The Jerusalem Show in 2008, Images du Moyent-Orient Musee Jeu Du Paume Paris, Cinema East Film Festival ARTEAST IFC theater NYC, and Gallery Peep, Sweeden, among others. 

Faces applauding alone (2008)
Ahmad Ghossein
7’ (Arabic with English subtitles)

Combining video footage filmed in the 1980s and a voice-over of letters between Rachid Ghossein and Mariam Hamadeh (the artist’s family), this short non-fiction video ponders on the time lag between remains and ruins.

Ahmad Ghossein is a filmmaker and video artist. He won the Best Director Prize at the Beirut International Film Festival (2004) for his short film Operation Nb… He directed several documentaries and videos including My father is still a communist commissioned by Sharja art foundation 2011; 210m, commissioned by Ashkal Alwan in 2007; Faux-raccord 2006, Faces Applauding Alone (2008); What Does Not Resemble Me Looks Exactly Like Me with Ghassan Salhab and Mohamad Soueid (2009); and An Arab Comes to Town (2008), a documentary filmed in Denmark produced by DR2.

ShortWave/LongWave (2009)
Vartan Avakian
7’15’’ (Arabic with English subtitles)

"Some cities have no voice."

Vartan Avakian is a Beirut-based visual artist. His work is inter-disciplinary employing video, installation, photography and other media.

Avakian is a founding member of the art collective Atfal Ahdath.

A circle around the sun (2005)
Ali Cherri
15’ (English)

“I was disappointed the day they announced the war had ended. I used to be elated by the idea of living in a city that was eating itself, like excess stomach fluid that digests and gradually eats away the stomach.” How to live in Beirut, a city that is always already in ruin?

Ali Cherri was born in Beirut in 1976. He studied graphic design at the American University of Beirut (AUB), and performing arts at DasArts in Amsterdam. His video work includes: “Un Cercle Autour du Soleil” (2005) (Awarded FAAP digital arts award at VideoBrazil, Sao Paulo - Brazil), “Untitled“ (2006), “Slippage” (2007) and “You” (2008). Ali has presented “Give me a body then” (performance, 2005) part of Diskurs 05 Germany (October 2005) and Home Works III Beirut (2005).

His latest video installation “My Pain is Real” (2010) was presented at IF Galerie in Paris part of CO_incidences.