Open Session #18: Hosted by Ala Tannir

Architect and curator Ala Tannir gives a lecture performance around her project and from my heart I blow kisses to the sea and houses, a roaming exhibition that guides the process of rehabilitating Tannir’s familial home in Ain el Mraisseh, after it was damaged in the Beirut Port explosion in August, 2020. Five artists contributed to the restoration of the 1920s house with permanent works that act as artistic infrastructural interventions, thinking through the complicated relationship between Beirut’s built heritage and the city’s rapidly changing urban landscape. With fragments of the house recently presented in the 24th Triennale Milano International Exhibition, Tannir now brings the project to New York and will explore its next iteration in progress. This convening also includes a listening session of a piano performance by artist Jana Saleh that took place in the house during the summer, composed and played on her damaged piano that lived through the explosion.

This event is the first Open Session of Homelands, marking the return of this series of monthly evening gatherings that open a space for experimentation, collective learning, and shared dialogue on works-in-progress related to our current research theme. 

Ala Tannir is an architect and curator from Beirut, currently based in New York. She has held curatorial positions at The Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), Carnegie Museum of Art, La Triennale di Milano and La Biennale di Venezia.