Golden Threads in Beirut

Workshop at 98weeks, Beirut

Delta Arts member Emma Smith has recently returned from a three-week fellowship in Beirut (27 September – 16 October 2010), completing the Golden Threads fellowships for 2010. Golden Threads is Delta Arts’ international fellowship program that ran this year between Lebanon, Denmark and the UK, supported by the Arts Council England and the Danish Arts Council.

During her fellowship in Beirut Emma was supported by 98weeks. Hosted by artist Marwa Arsanios and Mirene Arsanios who co-direct 98weeks Emma’s visit included a number of artist and organisational meetings, an artist talk, performance event, and three-day workshop.

Emma met with a number of Lebanese artists / practitioners including Hatem Imam (Golden Threads fellow to the UK 2010), Kiki Bokassa, Ghassan Maasri, Vartan Avakian, Elias Maalouf, Ghassan Salhab, Alfred Tarazi, Dalia Khamissy, Souad Abdallah, Eyad Houssami, Masour Aziz and Maxime Hourani.

Organisational visits included the Arab Image Foundation, Sfeir Semler gallery, Zico House, Sanayeh House and Studio, Ashkal Alwan, Zoukak and the Beirut Art Centre.

During her stay Emma ran a three-day workshop at 98weeks called ‘Art Services: Cultural Production and Public Use’. This peer-to-peer workshop explored self-organisation, how practice is valued, where it is located, the role of the artist in society and how practitioners can contribute to change.

She also gave an artist talk and hosted a reading group at 98weeks, and hosted a performative event at Sanayeh House in collaboration with artist Lawrence Abu Hamden.

Discussion: Hatem Imam, Turner Contemporary

Droit House, Margate

Thursday 16 September, 6.30 – 8.30pm

Droit House with Tracey Emin commission 'I never stopped loving you'. Turner Contemporary. Image: Sebastian Sharples

Lebanon-based artist and designer Hatem Imam leads a professional development discussion for practitioners. Where do artists situate educator roles within their practice? And how might this vary between the UK and Beirut? This event is organised in partnership with ARC and Turner Contemporary. Part of the Golden Threads fellowship programme organised by the collective Delta Arts in association with Gasworks, London.

Booking and information via http://www.turnercontemporary.org/

Golden Threads: Hatem Imam

Hatem Imam, 'Self-portrait in Beirut, December 2005'

Beirut-based artist Hatem Imam makes his UK research fellowship 28 August – 18 September 2010, as part of our Golden Threads programme.

Hosted by curator and educator Oliver Sumner (of Delta Arts), in association with Gasworks, he will be staying in Portsmouth and London.

Described in Bidoun magazine as ‘a shaggy-haired polymath’, Hatem Imam works in the fields of visual arts, design, theatre, event organisation, publishing, and education. His work considers the production of landscape in printed media and their relation to national identity. Hatem Imam currently teaches design at the American University of Beirut, he is a board member of the 98Weeks Research Project, and co-editor of Samandal comics magazine.

The focus of his visit will be to observe, negotiate and constructively critique the role of the artist within the context of education, in the UK and Lebanon. On being a contemporary artist in Beirut, he says, ‘There is no governmental art fund, barely any spaces for cultural production, and an ever-diminishing public space; our practice is constantly pushed to the margin of our daily production. This condition allows me a critical distance; it forces me to constantly re-question the validity of my work, and to situate it within a social and political context’.

Golden Threads is funded by Arts Council England.

Golden Threads in progress

Sølyst Artist in Residence Center (SAIR), Denmark

Danish artist Karen Land Hansen’s three-week Golden Threads visit to UK ends this weekend. She has had a packed itinerary of meetings and events, hosted by Oliver Sumner in London and Portsmouth. Meanwhile UK collaboration Townley+Bradby have arrived in Denmark for their Golden Threads fellowship hosted by Lars Mathisen in Copenhagen and at Solyst Artist in Residence Center. See their blog at www.goldenthreadsdenmark.wordpress.com

Documentation and dialogue will continue to appear on the Golden Threads ning site at http://goldenthreads.ning.com