The artist gives a new show, or rather a conference-performance, on 23 February at the Mina Image Center.
Lily Abichahine was trained to be a lawyer, she decided at the age of thirty to devote herself to art. She is particularly interested in the Mediterranean sea and its myths.
Following her first artistic residencies between Palermo and Beirut in 2021, the "Mare Nostrum" project was born, which is divided into two chapters. The first one, entitled "Choregraphy for a Woman and a Stone", explores the myth of Sisyphus, putting into perspective the cities destroyed by the earthquakes in Italy and the double explosion of August 4th in Beirut.
The second chapter, "Secrets of the Infinite Sea", is a journey between Izmir (Turkey) and Marseille (France), which focuses on Prometheus, both a hero and a victim.
"When I started this project, the aim was to explore the links and bridges between these cities, and to go beyond the simplistic contemporary terms and divisions, such as Schengen, borders, Global South, Europe, or visas that keep people apart from each other. In this way, we remind people that this basin, under the Roman Empire, was a lake governed by a single Roman law and that we had something unifying that we have lost. - Lily Abichahine, interview by media L'Orient-le-Jour.
Photo: "Secrets of the Infinite Sea" conference-performance with Lily Abichahine, copyrights Souraya Hammoud.