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#abandoneddwellingsbeirut
[version
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Abandoned
Dwellings.
Tableaux
solo
exhibitions
-
Abandoned Dwellings
of Beirut, Villa
Empain, Brussels,
2019 >> website
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Abandoned Dwellings,
Display of Systems.
Curated by Karina
el-Helou, Sursock
Museum, Beirut, 2018.
>> website
group
exhibitions
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From Beirut Art + Design scene, curated by Joanna
Chevalier.
Piasa, Paris,
2020 >>
website
- Beyond.
Modern and
Contemporary Art
and Design,
curated by Elena
Geuna and Zeina
Raphael,
Phillips, London, 2019
>> catalogue
entry |
In
2009, Gregory Buchakjian
decided to symbolically
inhabit abandoned
houses. This gesture
consisted of recovering
buildings whose
inhabitants had been
expelled either by wars
or by real estate
speculation. It is also
a re- enactment of a
sequence from Hamasat
– Whispers , a
documentary produced by
Maroun Bagdadi in 1980
and chronicling the
lives and the
testimonies of the
inhabitants of a country
torn between war and
hope. The film opens
with the poetess Nadia
Tuéni who, accompanied
by a photographer,
surveys the ruins of the
city, moving towards the
shore, and pronounces a
litany:
"Beirut has become
ruins. With time, ruins
become beautiful. But I
will not get accustomed
to it. Beirut was ugly,
maybe. But she was my
city. She was bad,
maybe. But she was my
city."
Between
2009 to 2018, forty
people took part in the
game despite the risks
involved: unwelcome
encounters, accidents,
bugs, dirt. This
performative practice
echoes the principle
stated by researcher
Rebecca Schneider:
performance can be
engaged as what remains,
rather than what
disappears. Although
condemned to extinction,
the body can be
approached in this
perspective as "an
archive and hosting a
collective memory".
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related
publication
-
Abandoned Dwellings.
A History of Beirut
related texts
- The
lives and deaths
of inhabitants in
abandoned houses,
2017
- Exhume
ghosts from one's
artwork (in
French), 2018
- Abandoned Dwellings in Beirut. Wars and
Transformation
of the Urban
Space.
1860-2015 (in
French), 2016
selected
reviews and
interviews
- Kirsten O'Regan, Hyperallergic, 06'12'2018
- Tim Cornwell, Middle East Eye, 10'12'2019
- Sam Brennan, Al-Monitor, 03'12'2018
- India Stoughton, The National, 19'11'2018
- Iain Akerman, Arab News, 10'01'2020
abandoned
dwellings
bodies of work
- Abandoned Dwellings. Inventory
- Abandoned Dwellings. Archive
- Abandoned Dwellings. Typologies
-
Abandoned Dwellings. Inside/Outside
-
Abandoned Dwellings. Facts
-
Abandoned Dwellings. Restitution
- Agenda 1979
- Chez Takieddine el-Solh
prequel
projects
- Sniper Pinhole, 2017
-
Kolmanskop, 2013
- Leningrad, 2013
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©gregory buchakjian.
all rights reserved. Photo by Christopher Baaklini, courtesy
Sursock Museum
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