“The repetition detected in their time-based works echoes the numerous attempts to verbalize commentaries about Beirut, and reflects the shimmering refractions of these kaleidoscopic glimpses, together conveying an incomplete and transitory impression of the city.”

Exhibition: “Beirut: Eternal Recurrence,” group exhibition (featuring artists Ziad Antar, Marwa Arsanios, Ali Cherri, Batoul Faour, Sirine Fattouh, Mona Hatoum, Lamia Joreige, Lynn Kodeih, Walid Raad / The Atlas Group, Stéphanie Saadé, Jayce Salloum, Akram Zaatari), SAW, Ottawa, July 15 – September 23, 2023.

Keywords: exhibitions, curatorial practice, art, contemporary, representations, fractured, fragmented, views, viewpoints, multiple, plural, complexity, intensity, media, time-based, videos, films, installations, geographic, political, social, historical, cultural, urban, architecture, planning, cyclical, cyclicality, repetition, repetitive, commentaries, reflections, refractions, light, duplications, re-enactments, returns, loop, déjà vu, trauma, elusive, Sigmund Freud, Jalal Toufic, Friedrich Nietzsche, philosophy, theory, catastrophes, disasters, consciousness, history, past, present, future, patterns, interpretation, cacophony, resistance, world, global, orange, sunset, light, dark, memory, collective, events, turmoil, tribulations, tragedy, civil, war, conflict, explosion, instability, public, sphere, discourse, Beirut, Lebanon, Southwest Asia (”Middle East”), Arab, Ottawa, Canada

Image: Ava Margueritte