Exercises in collective reading
A workshop by Marwa Arsanios
January 2013
Contemporary Image Collective (CIC)
Cairo, Egypt
Participants in this workshop at Cairo’s Contemporary Image Collective were invited to re-read and reflect on copies of the Arab cultural magazine al-Hilal that date back to the 1950s. Lebanese artist Marwa Arsanios asked attendees to select articles or themes of interest from back issues of the magazine in order to conceptually re-present them, in addition to considering their formats and designs. The results of these exercises are fascinating, providing a glimpse into particular moments in the region`s cultural history that are often overlooked.
In this video, Arsanios discusses the theoretical strategies behind the workshop and its relation to a larger al-Hilal-inspired project, which she began at her Beirut-based 98Weeks Project Space.
[This video is produced by Medrar TV and is featured as part of a new partnership with Jadaliyya Culture.]