Marwa Arsanios on Art, Research, and Land Politics

Marwa Arsanios, an artist born in Washington DC and living between Berlin and Beirut, discusses her practice that balances roles as worker, researcher, and advocate. Her work examines political developments of the second half of the twentieth century, focusing on gender relations, collectivism, urbanism, and industrialization. Arsanios's practice is defined by its relationship to research, often involving co-operatives, unions, or archives, and manifests in films, writing, performances, reading rooms, textile works, and works on paper. Her 2014 video 'Have You Ever Killed a Bear? or Becoming Jamila' considers the image of Algerian anti-colonial fighter Djamila Bouhired, referencing the 1966 film 'The Battle of Algiers' and the Egyptian magazine Al-Hilal, founded in 1892. The video evolved from text to performance over a decade. Her 2016 film 'Falling is Not Collapsing, Falling is Extending' observes Beirut's garbage crisis, revealing corruption and the political system's mafia-like nature. The 'Who's Afraid of Ideology?' series addresses radical ecology and property, with the fourth film 'Reverse Shot' exploring usership over ownership. Arsanios emphasizes decentering normalized property frameworks and considering land's own temporalities. This profile appeared in Canvas 108: The Root of it All.