THE CHOSEN TWO
Video projection, audio, vinyl text on walls
Beirut, 2010–12 Commissioned by Beirut Art Center, as part of ‘exposure 4’ exhibition, Beirut, 2012
This multimedia installation, staging dialogues with two mukhtars (elected administrators), one real, one fictional, was an inquiry into the urban borders of Beirut, subsequently examining the administrative borders, their narratives and history.
These administrative borders are frequently contested, and are a manifestation of the discrepancy between the reality of an urban space and its past and present representation in official documents and procedures. They are implemented by state institutions and challenged by the actions of political parties and the lived experience of residents. The aim of the project was to explore the slippage between different modes of representation, whether administrative, political, historical or cultural.
One of the mukhtars interviewed was from the Mazraa district, his office located in Tarik al-Jdide; the other was a mukhtar character played by Mohamad Shamil in E’Dinyeh Heik, a comedy series aired on national television in Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s. The installation of video, audio and textual material proposed the bordering practice of ‘hiding’ behind the border of administration, supported by the real mukhtar’s use of official documents as answers to interview questions. Thus the resulting proposition was to consider how administrative practices seek to ‘hide’ borders, either intentionally for political reasons or unintentionally because of the inadequacy of the representational techniques followed in political representation and procedures. The juxtaposition of the actual mukthar and a fictional mukthar in one space aimed to expose the discrepancies between the workings of representation in administrative procedures and their narratives. This was part of Negotiating Conflict series.
Supported by the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) and University College London (UCL)