2014 Friday March 14 at 2 pm: Beirut Open City, DAI public lecture by Walid Sadek - invited by Bassam El Baroni in the context of his seminar Agitationism. Kindly hosted by Museum Arnhem.
Unlivable is the labyrinth or so it is made by fair-tressed Ariadne. No one is allowed to inhabit it not even a monstrous Minoan bull. The labyrinth is now a maze, a daunting but permeable fortress, a bastion that can be outwitted in a risky sort of gaming from which one can emerge a victor. What is a labyrinth in Arabic and is there a word that could indicate the other of al matāha where the possibility of getting lost or al tīh is inexistent? The issue is not purely lexical. The distinction between a space defined by the possibility of getting lost and another where getting lost is impossible is only significant if the two can be brought to ignite a dialectical reconceptualization of the open city at a time when the nation besieges our political dreams from all sides and governs the overlapping terms of our despairs and aspirations.
About Walid Sadek