"Curating Care: Friendship Networks and Grassroots Activism in Lebanese Sound & Performance Art," by Dr. Rim Irscheid
Please attend a talk in the Center for Ethnomusicology (701C Dodge Hall) on October 16, 2024 from 6–8PM.
If you are not a Columbia affiliate or are unable to access campus, please register for the talk by scanning the QR code in the attached poster or by clicking here.
Abstract:
How have Lebanese artists preserved their stories of the 2020 Beirut port explosion through sound performance art? This talk highlights artist-led initiatives that create sonic interventions and build their own institutions and care infrastructures that challenge the official state narrative and its policy frameworks for supporting the arts in Lebanon. The talk and following discussion will explore how collectives navigated the pandemic, economic crisis, and Port explosion, rethinking dominant narratives of resistance in contemporary Lebanese culture. Focusing on two institutions that prioritize care, trust, and solidarity, the talk illustrates how grassroots networks leverage diverse funding sources to innovate performance formats and foster new expressions of local identity.
Bios:
Dr Rim Irscheid (she/they) is a Palestinian-German curator, artist, and postdoctoral fellow at King’s College London researching curatorial activism across sound art, experimental music and diaspora archival projects from Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt. Dr Irscheid is currently a Research Associate on the ERC/UKRI project "Beyond 1932: Rethinking Musical Modernity in the Middle East and North Africa."
Paola Cossermelli Messina (discussant) is a PhD candidate in Ethnomusicology at Columbia University researching Arab music, sonorities, and memory in and between Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Brazil.
