“And Before It Falls, It Is Only Reasonable to Enjoy Life a Little” is one of several episodes making up Rana Hamadeh’s long-term research project “Alien Encounters”. “Alien Encounters” was initially inspired by Sun Ra`s 1974 film ‘Space is the Place’, which proposes an African-American exodus towards outer space in response to racial injustice. It came to life with the beginning of the Arab revolutions, and contemplates the notion of `alien-ness`: the outcast with regards to the law versus the extraterrestrial by bringing together elements, from science fiction film and literature, contemporary migration, capital flows, colonial legacies, mining and transport histories, cold-war aesthetics, as well as ideas on criminology, epidemiology and theatre. Following her performance at 98weeks project space in Beirut, Hamadeh sat down for a long chat with Medrar.TV, discussing the project’s different facets.
Rana Hamadeh is a visual and performance artist from Beirut. Interested in curation as an artistic practice, she works on long term discursive projects that involve lecture-performances, installations, and audio/text based works. She focuses on speech/conversation as an artistic medium, questioning with that the conditions of spectatorship; as well as the boundaries, authority and mechanisms of meaning production. Her work has been shown in several international venues including (a.o.) Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), New Museum (New York), and Beirut Art Center (Beirut).
Amira El Masry translated the interview to English.
[This video was produced by Medrar TV and is featured in partnership with Jadaliyya Culture]