Art Talks & Exhibition

Chagoury Health Sciences Auditorium, Byblos campus

The Department of Art & Design, in collaboration with the Institute of Women’s Studies in the Arab World, is hosting 3 lectures: “Can Art Change the World” by Zena El Khalil, “Defiant Art” by Ginane Makki Bacho, and “A Photographic Journey into Palestine” by Rula Halawani, followed by a panel discussion and exhibition.

Zena El Khalil, born year of the Dragon, is a visual artist, writer, and Nada yoga instructor based in Beirut. She exhibits internationally and her work includes mixed media paintings, installations, and performance that focus on creating a culture of peace through love, compassion, forgiveness, and empathy. During the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, she was one of the first largely followed Middle Eastern bloggers and was soon after invited to speak at the Nobel Peace Center, Oslo on freedom of expression over the internet. In 2008, her memoir “Beirut, I Love You” was published by Saqi Books and in 2012, Zena was invited to join TED Fellowship Program.

Ginane Makki Bacho holds a Master of Fine Arts in Printmaking and Painting from Pratt Institute (NY) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from LAU. She has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in Beirut and abroad where her work has been held in a number of public and private collections in Beirut, Washington D.C., and Alexandria to name a few. “Her art comprises a series of paintings, etchings and print books centered on her own life as a Lebanese woman navigating the vagaries of tradition, family life, exile, alienation dashed aspirations and remembrance” (Nasser Rabbat). She has recently shifted from the personal to the regional in her most recent exhibition titled “Civilization”. Also, she is particularly well-known for her metal sculptures made out of shrapnel of bombs centered about the Cedar as it confirms a material testament to the violence that has shaped her own country’s recent history. Ginane describes the artists as a witness of his (her) own era.

As a native of occupied East Jerusalem, Rula Halawani began her artistic career by registering the difficulties of living under a protracted political conflict. She holds a Bachelor of Art degree in Advanced Photography from the University of Saskatchewan (Canada) and a Master of Art degree in Photographic Studies from the University of Westminster (London). She was the founding director and an associate professor of the Photography program at Birzeit University. Halawani’s work has been exhibited in Pittsburg, Italy, Tokyo, Brussels, London, USA, Beirut, Dubai, and Jerusalem. Her photographs are housed in international collections in Paris, Germany, London, Amman, and USA among others. Palestine (2008), the artist’s first monograph, was published by La Lettre Volée, Brussels in conjunction with her mid career retrospective at the Botanique Museum. In 2016, Halawani received a residency fellowship at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France.

Lectures will be followed by a moderated panel discussion by Rania Jaber.

Rania Jaber is a visiting researcher at IWSAW and a Ph.D. candidate in Art History and World Arts Studies. Her current research addresses translation, memory, diaspora, and women artists from Lebanon.

The discussion will be followed by an exhibition opening and reception at 5:00 p.m. The exhibition will remain open from Monday April 24 till Friday April 28, 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m in Rima Hourani Exhibition Room, LAU Byblos campus.