01/08/16
Interview: Lamia Joreige
Lamia Joreige (b1972) is a visual artist and film-maker who grew up in
Lebanon during the civil war (1975-1990). She makes work about her own and
others’ experiences, creating a new collective history, aside from the one
presented in the media. Using archival documents and oral histories, she
interrogates the notion of truth and explores the aftermath of war in her city,
Beirut.
In 2011, Joreige’s work Objects of War [No 1 to 4, 1999-2006], a series of video testimonials and personal
possessions, was the first major piece of Lebanese art to be acquired by the
Tate Collection.
Joreige is one of seven artists
to have been selected to show in the Artes Mundi 7 exhibition (21 October 2016
– 26 February 2017), the UK’s leading international contemporary art prize,
from which a winner will be selected in January 2017, to receive £40,000, the
UK’s largest monetary prize awarded to an artist. In the run-up to the
exhibition in Cardiff (jointly held at the National Museum Cardiff and Chapter
art galley, Cardiff), Joreige explained some of the concepts behind her work in
a Skype call from Beirut.
Read this interview here