The VOLUME Project in Beirut

Started as a long-term research project in November 2013, the VOLUME project investigates the potential of libraries as sites for artistic creation and production of knowledge, as well as for the formation of critique and dialogue. For nine days, international and local artists, theorists, curators and librarians will engage the public library as a space and a concept, through a series of performances, ad-hoc interventions, talks, literary writings and installations. Events will take place at 98weeks Project Space, Assabil Libraries, and in public spaces around Beirut.

A live publishing platform called “Vologue” will accompany the project. Two writers/witnesses, Roger Outa and Lina Mounzer, will react to talks, events, and performances. Their accounts will appear daily in printed form and on VOLUME’s website.

All the interventions and their ramifications will eventually coalesce into a single publication – the VOLUME – which will be donated to Beirut’s public libraries. VOLUME is therefore the artists’ measuring device and connector. It is part and whole. It is inside the library. It is the library. It is what is what the library is missing.

For more information, email:
volume.beirut@gmail.com