On the occasion of the exhibition "Inhabiting the interstices, Beirut, the artists and the city" at the Michel Journiac gallery of the University Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, round table with the two curators of the exhibition, Françoise Docquiert and Nayla Tamraz, and some of the artists of the exhibition: Nadim Asfar, Sirine Fattouh, Mireille Kassar, Marwan Moujaes and Maha Yammine
Since the disaster of August 4, 2020, Beirut has been living in a state of deep despair. Place of an unthinkable, all rationality failing to find reasons, this state is however what we cannot renounce to think.
How to think then with the artists the collapse of a city? And what can we say about a reality such as Beirut today when the very words escape from it and are exhausted? What narrative to build? What story to tell? Between the end of what was, and the end of possibilities, the present, this in-between, can only be envisaged in the same mode of impossible representation. To inhabit the interstices is finally a posture which describes the possible experiences in this time of the after.
Nayla Tamraz is a professor of literature and art history at Saint Joseph University in Beirut, where she also directs the master's and doctoral program in art criticism and curatorial studies.
Her parallel practice as an art critic and curator has led her to organize exhibitions, notably in Argentina, within the framework of the South American Biennial of Contemporary Art.
Françoise Docquiert is a member of the ACTE Institute and will remain a university professor at Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne until 2020. She currently teaches at IESA.
She is an independent curator with projects around contemporary art and photography. She is preparing an exhibition on The Portrait/Collection Damien and Florence Bachelot at the Reattu Museum for the Rencontres d'Arles 2023 and an exhibition with the Antoine de Galbert collection in South Korea.
Practical information
Michel Journiac Gallery, University Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne
47 rue des Bergers 75015
from January 19 to February 7, 2022 (opening on January 18)
in partnership with ARTER
Penser le Présent is realized with the support of Société Générale.
