How I Started to Stutter: Action (in)jection Language games, urban disjunction & a reading of Lebanese action films

ARCH+ART3
The third iteration of MEGAWRA’s occasional talks on architecture and art
Artist Talk by Vartan Avakian

In 1979 Samir Ghosseini’s Hasna’ wa ‘Amaliqa (Beauty and the Giants) premiered in Beirut, marking the launch of the Lebanese Action Cinema. With the civil war raging, the 1980s was a period when weapons and explosives were easily accessible in Lebanon. It was also a time when urbanity was being redeployed and geography disrupted. Action films weaved narratives that dissociated the cityscape from historic and geographic specificity, and disregarded the political contradictions of war. Beirut was reduced to a décor of myriad constructions devoid of history, where the entirety of the city acted as a scenography where escapist scenarios could be staged. In How I Started to Stutter: Action (in)Jection, Vartan Avakian stages his encounter with Beirut in the space between the city and its image, as well as the space between language and discourse.

The talk will be in Arabic.

http://www.vartanavakian.com/va.html