Beirut Art Center has been conceiving its programming around structural and material conditions in the visual fields in Lebanon and beyond. In addition to being a platform for creative and intellectual output, BAC is examining the socio-political struggles with which the workings of the center intersect. Our goal is to build interdisciplinary projects that use art as a conductor for community-building, political action and radical imagination.
Since 2019, Lebanon has plummeted into a financial crisis exacerbated by the pandemic, and exponentially impacted by the Beirut Port explosion. With artists struggling financially and with little bandwidth to embark on projects, there is renewed importance in engaging them with manageable prompts. BAC's artistic program offers residencies, a series of micro-commissions, an online publication, technical workshops, and a series of sustainable exhibitions.
Through modest but sustained initiatives like residencies, publications, workshops, and cultural gatherings and collaborations, we are thinking of the center as an economic and political motor for the small businesses and skill sets we work with. We are keen on trying to turn limitations imposed upon us by a regime that incessantly proliferates crises, into generative prompts to rethink the role of an art center and its ties to civil society.
The programs developed throughout the year will support upwards of 25 local artists, 30 writers and translators, 5 designers, and tens of other cultural practitioners, providing them with the space and resources to develop and present their work, as well as provide an open accessible platform for knowledge and skill sharing.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
