Vision Forum is proud to launch a new node in collaboration with 98weeks and Assabil Libraries in Beirut. The project is called VOLUMES: Reactivating Lebanon’s Public Libraries and inserts artworks and performances by contemporary artists in public libraries across Lebanon. The project does so with the aim of investigating the potential of libraries as a site for artistic creation and production of knowledge. It sees that these underused places can host dialogues that inspires a critical dimension where it is direly needed. The project will encourage novel cultural creation in libraries in Beirut and across Lebanon through innovative artistic and critical interventions. Enriched by new activities and "site-specific VOLUMES” the library will be transformed into a participative forum that counteracts the country’s political and religious sectarianism which threatens dialogues of a true public dimension. For the project Lebanese and European curators will commission contemporary artists and critical thinkers from Lebanon and Europe according to the libraries' geographical location, collection history, and current use.
The group will commission 12 artists, writers and thinkers, both local and international, to develop a contribution to the library. This aims to directly engage artists and cultural actors to implement poetic aspects in the library that are textual, but also visual, conceptual or performance-based.
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