Politics of Fiction and Post civil-war Memory Culture in Lebanon

Panel discussion on the politics of fiction and post civil-war memory culture in Lebanon, chaired by Dr T J Demos, with speakers Shela Sheikh and Faisal Devji

T.J. Demos writes widely on modern and contemporary art and his and is also a critic, writing for magazines such as Artforum, Texte zur Kunst, and Art Press and Art Journal. His published work centers broadly on the conjunction of art and politics, examining the ability of artistic practice to invent innovative and experimental strategies that challenge dominant conventions, whether representational, aesthetic, or social and political.

Shela Sheikh is completing a PhD in the History Department at Goldsmiths College, London, on the relationship between testimony and martyrdom in the writings of Jacques Derrida. In the thesis, the performance pieceThree Posters (2000), by Rabih Mroué and Elias Khoury, acts as a starting point for the philosophical questions that ensue.

Faisal Devji is Reader in Indian History at the University of Oxford. He is the author of two books, Landscapes of the Jihad (2005) and The Terrorist in Search of Humanity (2009), and one forthcoming titled The Impossible Indian: Gandhi and the Temptation of Violence.

I, the Undersigned – The People are Demanding is the first solo exhibition in the UK by Lebanese artist, theatre director, playwright and actor Rabih Mroué. Influenced by the ongoing conflicts in Lebanon and the Middle East since the Lebanese Civil War, Mroué looks at issues of historical narration, exclusion and remembrance. For this exhibition he presents new installations alongside key recent works and a live performance.

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