Partially Occupy Darkness
Partially Occupy Darkness
Ghassan Maasri
“Today, as soon as it gets dark, Dalieh feels unsafe as virgin nature should be: pitch dark at night, dead quiet and far from any urbanization. Why did the lights go off? Why is no one living down there anymore?” During four days, different areas of Dalieh were activated at night with a mobile and independent light box. People were invited to take part in activities like fishing, staring at the stars or claiming that “the revolution is won”, thus creating new memories based on the site’s potentials and narratives.
The Dalieh Campaign and Save Beirut Heritage have designed a city-wide program to take place during the Ministry of Culture’s “Heritage Week” in May 2017 and the Beirut Design Week 2017, that includes talks and public discussions, site interventions and installations, school workshops and site visits, concerts and street fairs. The program aims to recognize citizens and city users as active partners in the battle to save the city’s heritage, and to enable them to voice their concerns about the market-led developments and laisser-faire governance that are changing the character and identity of Beirut. In collaboration with The Civil Campaign to Protect the Dalieh of Raouche, Temporary Art Platform invited contemporary artists Mustapha Jundi, Omar Fakhoury, Ieva Saudargaité Douaihi, Nadim Mishlawi, Raymond Gemayel, Ghassan Maasri, and artist collective Pascal Hachem and Rana Haddad (200 gr.) to intervene on-site. Dalieh is one of our last-open access shared space in Beirut, the last free entry point to the sea along the city coast. Dalieh's unique landscape and ecological features as well as its rich diversity of topographical and geological composition facing the iconic Pigeon Rock make it a favorite hang-out site for families and lovers, an exceptional spot for fishing and swimming activities for the local community. Dalieh is threatened and is subject of dubious and corrupt privatization, its future is uncertain; image renderings of luxury resorts overlooking Raouché are already in circulation... Monumental gestures (Omar Fakhoury) and intangible ones (Omar Fakhoury) participative approaches (Ghassan Maasri and Raymond Gemayel) and historical interpretations (Mustapha Jundi), absurd situations (Pascal Hachem and Rana Haddad) and didactic signs (Ieva Saudargaité), ephemeral place making (Kunsthalle 3000) and poetic listening (Nadim Mishlawi) grapple with experiential and performative ways of engaging with the site’s intrinsic human, natural and cultural values and features, involving new publics and expanding the understanding of contemporary art.
Year: 2017
Location: Dalieh, Beirut
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Date: 2017
Location: The Dalieh of Raouche
Medium: Installation, Sculpture, Urban Furniture
Material: Remote controlled color changing LED strips, wood, glass, 12V battery
Section: Contemporary
Duration: Temporary
Tags:
Site-specific Intervention
Site-specific Intervention
Site-specific artworks / projects take into consideration the location where it is to be exposed, with regard to both space and community. In other words, it is marked with the site’s history, physical elements, topographical features, socioeconomic factors and/or other significant elements, which make the work impossible to displace, or, at the least, less relevant if not apprehended within this site.
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Social Practice
Social Practice
Socially engaged practice describes art that is collaborative, often participatory and involves people as the medium or material of the work. The participatory element is key, with the artworks created often holding equal or less importance to the collaborative act of creating them. Socially engaged practice can be associated with activism because it often deals with political issues. (Tate)
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Participatory Art
Participatory Art
Participatory art directly engages people in the creative process so that they become participants in the event. In this respect, the artist is seen as a collaborator and a co-producer of the project along with the audience.
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Site-specific artworks / projects take into consideration the location where it is to be exposed, with regard to both space and community. In other words, it is marked with the site’s history, physical elements, topographical features, socioeconomic factors and/or other significant elements, which make the work impossible to displace, or, at the least, less relevant if not apprehended within this site.
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Socially engaged practice describes art that is collaborative, often participatory and involves people as the medium or material of the work. The participatory element is key, with the artworks created often holding equal or less importance to the collaborative act of creating them. Socially engaged practice can be associated with activism because it often deals with political issues. (Tate)
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Participatory art directly engages people in the creative process so that they become participants in the event. In this respect, the artist is seen as a collaborator and a co-producer of the project along with the audience.
Explore more Participatory Art
Framework: Dalieh Watch Day
Authorizations: Remote controlled color changing LED strips, wood, glass, 12V battery
Commissioner: Temporary Art Platform, the Civil Campaign to Protect the Dalieh of Raouche
This category refers to artworks or projects that take place for a specific amount of time determined by the artist, the commissioner, or the authorities involved.
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