We welcome filmmaker Sabine El Chamaa at the Zukunftskolleg
Sabine El Chamaa will collaborate with Gruia Badescu (Research Fellow/Dept. of History and Sociology) in the framework of their intersectoral cooperative project "Beirut-Sarajevo Intersections"
„In my research on post-war reconstruction and memory, I reflected on the distinctive trajectories of two cities that some have put together in a category of “conflict cities”: Beirut and Sarajevo“, explains Gruia Badescu the starting point of his collaboration with Sabine El Chamaa.
„Sarajevo´s 1992-1996 siege and Beirut´s experience in the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990; continued by wars waged from abroad after 2000) - while echoing each other in terms of destruction and trauma inflicted on residents - are remembered differently: an obsession with memory in Sarajevo and an enforced amnesia in Beirut. The correspondence between the two urban spaces and the contrast between their memory cultures has been a feature of my research“, states Gruia. „The question of experiencing the two cities and embodying experience and memory has also featured prominently in the thought of Sabine El Chamaa.
Our project aims to explore through different visual media the research done and move it forward towards a new form of expression that would be experienced by various publics.“
They want to set up a visual project, which will account to an exhibit-installation, including films and photographic media on the two cities. The project will examine how the trajectories of these cities intersect, and interrogate whether and how their urban histories, memories, and imaginaries mirror each other. The medium of film and of other visual media will also bring an experimental edge and move beyond the horizons Gruia usually explores in an academic fashion. The aim is to produce a constellation of visual media-film, collage, photos, expressing both research as well as creative engagements with the material.
Sabine El Chamaa is a Lebanese filmmaker. She was born and raised in Beirut. Following her undergraduate studies in Communication Arts, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue film studies, and worked as an editor in the US and in Europe before moving back to Beirut. She holds an MFA from the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, and a PhD by practice from Goldsmiths University of London (UK). Sabine’s recent projects include photographic and video installations that question the ongoing reconstruction of memory in relation to personal archival images. Sabine currently lives and works in Beirut.
More information on Sabine El Chamaa
Watch her video "Promenade" (10 min.) on vimeo [password: promenade2009!]
More information about Gruia Badescu