Inspiring Serendipities: Jad El Khoury – heritage, memory, healing (INSPIRE Seminar Series)
Please be invited to our first hybrid INSPIRE seminar and workshop this fall with Lebanese artist and architect Jad El Khoury on Monday 21 November 16:00-18:00 CET.
The event will take place at PRIO, Hausmanns gate 3, Oslo. But Jad’s presentation can also be followed on Microsoft Teams at this link. Please register on the PRIO website for physical attendance. For those attending in-person a light meal will be served.
The seminar is open to all interested in these topics. Please share widely with students and others who might find this seminar of interest.
In this seminar Jad will first present some of his work and artistic practices. Jad often uses the public space to invite the audience to think beyond the reality they are familiar with. His background in architecture has inspired many of his art interventions in public spaces. He is sensitive to serendipities something that has characterized his art practice. Jad is also concerned with collective memory and politics largely due to his experiences in growing up in post-civil war Lebanon. Although his mediums and techniques are constantly evolving, he maintains a connection with the physical environmentstaying true to his original public interventions.
After introducing his work and practice, Jad will invite those present at PRIO to take part in a workshop, where they will be asked to engage with the messages he elicited from those experiencing an art installation of his at the Street Art Museum in Amsterdam. The theme of the workshop will explore, amongst other issues, the relationship between spectators and victims of war and conflict.
When is it that people feel close or far from situations of war and conflict? What role can spectators of war and conflict have? What is the relationship of a private memory making it out to the public?
Describing his practice, Jad writes:
"After studying architecture in Beirut, I have worked with traces of war in Lebanon, where I grew up. I am part of the first post civil war (1975-1990) generation. To me, transforming accidental monuments of bitterness in the city into choreographed installations dancing with the wind was a necessity. It is my method to poetically rebel against religious sectarianism and suffering. My practice intertwines reality with fiction, facts with uncertainty, architecture with art, memory with forgetfulness."
Please read more about Jad and his art practice on his INSPIRE Artist Profile.
The INSPIRE seminar series is a monthly space where we explore arts-based methods, collaborative methods, ethics of doing research with artists, art as transformation and engaged scholarship - all in the context of violent conflict and war - with invited researchers and artists. The seminars are open to all interested in these topics.
We hope to see many of you in person and online!