CALL FOR APPLICATIONS 

DEADLINE TO APPLY: MARCH 7, 2015

http://ashkalalwan.org/programs/hwp2015-16/" target="_blank">Home Workspace Program 2015-16

October 5, 2015 – July 3, 2016 at http://ashkalalwan.org/" target="_blank">Ashkal Alwan

Ashkal Alwan is pleased to announce the open call for fellows in the fifth edition of its arts study program Home Workspace Program (HWP), taking place in Beirut from October 5, 2015 through July 28, 2016.

In his Mimesis and Alterity, Michael Taussig writes:

“Now the strange thing about this silly if not desperate place between the real and the really made-up is that it appears to be where most of us spend most of our time as epistemically correct, socially created, and occasionally creative beings. We dissimulate. We act and have to act as if mischief were not afoot in the kingdom of the real and that all around the ground lay firm. That is what the public secret … is all about.”

The workshops and seminars in http://ashkalalwan.org/programs/hwp2015-16/" target="_blank">From The Miraculous to the Mundane will explore different forms of mischief, and the additional gestures we deploy (dissimulation and more) as we act and have to act in the kingdom of the real. Moreover, they will engage some of the other places (elsewhere than the desperate place between the ‘real’ and the ‘really made-up’) where the rest of us also spend most or some of our time as epistemically incorrect, not socially created, and for the most part as creative beings.

http://ashkalalwan.org/programs/hwp2015-16/" target="_blank">HWP 2015-16 will be organized around workshops led by Resident Professors Ghassan Salhab, Minerva Cuevas, Sandra Noeth, and Raqs Media Collective, and will include seminars by Ahmad Beydoun, Kodwo Eshun, Zainab Bahrani, and Finbarr Barry Flood, and a Preface organized by Ali Cherri. Haig Aivazian will be the year’s Resident Artist/Advisor to fellows.

ABOUT HWP

The HWP is an interdisciplinary arts study program launched by Ashkal Alwan in 2011 in Beirut. The program admits artists and other cultural practitioners who wish to develop their formal, historical, and critical skills in a discursive setting, and provides enrolled fellows with feedback and resources to facilitate and support their practice. The program is also accessible to non-enrolled participants through various lectures and other activities that are open to the public.

HWP is organized around workshops led by invited Resident Professors (RPs) – artists, collectives, writers, thinkers, producers, curators, filmmakers – who invite guest speakers, and give one-on-one feedback to fellows.

Alongside the RPs’ workshops, the curriculum includes a series of seminars meant to complement fellows’ general theoretical and art historical knowledge, and led by invited scholars, thinkers and writers.

The curriculum engages the city through a Preface organized by a local artist or other cultural practitioner, and consisting of a series of conversations with invited speakers, and guided visits to various cultural, historical, industrial and other sites. 

In addition to one-on-one meetings with RPs, fellows receive feedback on their work via meetings with the year’s Resident Artist/Advisor, and via group critiques with outside guests. The fellows also have opportunities to present their work to the public on open studio days.

The program is housed in Ashkal Alwan’s multidisciplinary space in Jisr al Wati (Beirut) which includes work and presentation spaces, library, video and sound editing suites, and coffee shop. 

Tuition and public activities in the HWP are free.