Political violence, war and social injustice generate events that exceed human imagination and sensitivity. Although sorely tested, artistic subjectivity is capable of expressing the inconceivable in a poetic, allegorical or conceptual form that is more revealing and transformative than any direct representation.
This exhibition is about unveiling, processing, becoming and healing, which together make it possible to gain agency and the capacity to imagine a future. It presents artists from Ukraine, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, the Golan Heights, Myanmar and Belarus. They deal with the damage caused to their communities in different ways. Some convey a sense of brokenness through a fragmented body. Others commemorate the victims or engrave their names in the collective memory. There are those who try to understand how their identity shifts, accepting the scars and displacements and those who turn their fragility into a weapon, using the power of art as a protective shield.
Together, their artistic expressions and experiences intertwine in a dialogue that forms a common account of their struggle for peace and justice.
Artists: Akram Al Halabi, Marwa Arsanios, Yana Bachynska, Sirine Fattouh, Rana Haddad & Pascal Hachem, Nikolay Karabinovych, Myro Klochko & Anatoliy Tatarenko, Nge Lay, Bahar Majdzadeh, Open Group (Yuriy Biley, Pavlo Kovach, Anton Varga), Marina Naprushkina, Sergiy Petlyuk, Farnaz Rabieijah, Alyona Tokovenko, Reem Yassouf.
Curator: Oksana Karpovets
Exhibition organised in partnership with Portes Ouvertes sur l'art.
It is the discussion with the artists whose work is presented in the exhibition.
Participants:
- Oksana Karpovets, curator of the exhibition When the Inconceivable Takes Form, current resident at the Cité internationale des arts through the CNAP X Cité internationale des arts residency programme
- Marina Naprushkina, artist, feminist and activist of Belarusian origin who lives and works in Berlin
- Rana Haddad, Lebaneese artist, current resident at the Cité internationale des arts as part of the “2-12” residency programme
- Bahar Majdzadeh, Iranian artist-researcher who lives and works between Paris and Marseille
Information to come !
Participants :
- Patricia Couvet, curator, member of Beyond the post-soviet and Slavs and Tatars
- Nikolay Karabinovych, artist, former resident at the Cité internationale des arts
- Oksana Karpovets, curator of the exhibition When the Inconceivable Takes Form, current resident at the Cité internationale des arts through the CNAP X Cité internationale des arts residency programme
- Léopold Lambert, writer, editor of The Funambulist Magazine
- Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, interdependent curator, cultural programs manager at the Cité internationale des arts
- Sasha Pevak, interdependent art worker, cofounder of Beyond the post-soviet
- Dilda Ramazan, curator and art worker, member of Beyond the post-soviet and Davra collective
Director: Mantas Kvedaravicius. Duration: 108 min. Year: 2022
A raw immersion in the chaos of the Ukrainian city, alongside a handful of survivors. Stunningly poetic, this posthumous documentary by Mantas Kvedaravicius, who was killed in the conflict, bears witness to the fierce will to live of the besieged inhabitants.
Kindly provided by the Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap)
Participants:
- Pascale Cassagnau, inspectrice générale de la création, responsable des collections audiovisuelles et nouveaux médias au Centre national des arts plastiques (Ministère de la culture)
- Oksana Karpovets, curator of the exhibition When the Inconceivable Takes Form, current resident at the Cité internationale des arts through the CNAP X Cité internationale des arts residency programme
- Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, interdependent curator, cultural programs manager at the Cité internationale des arts