{"id":6772,"date":"2026-05-28T12:25:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T10:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studiorizoma.org\/?post_type=event&p=6772"},"modified":"2026-05-28T12:43:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T10:43:25","slug":"6772","status":"publish","type":"event","link":"https:\/\/studiorizoma.org\/pt-pt\/event\/6772\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cASNAM\u201d by Georges Salameh Book Presentation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On Saturday, June 6, 2026, at 6:00 PM, \u00c9glise<\/strong>, in collaboration with Fondazione Studio Rizoma, will host the presentation of \u201cASNAM\u201d<\/em><\/strong>, the latest photobook by Georges Salameh<\/strong>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The event takes the form of a tableau vivant, a format of presentation that combines images, spoken word, and space, and which has long characterized the ways photographic projects are shared at \u00c9glise. This format privileges the processual dimension of artistic work, making visible the genealogies, choices, tensions, and possibilities embedded within contemporary image-making.<\/p>\n

Based on a research project initiated in 2009 during his returns to Lebanon, Georges Salameh\u2019s \u201cASNAM\u201d<\/em> investigates the proliferation of Christian religious statues throughout the contemporary Lebanese urban and rural landscape.<\/p>\n

Christs, Madonnas, saints, and angels \u2014 initially observed outside traditional places of worship \u2014 progressively appear along roads, across neighborhoods, and within villages, becoming increasingly widespread and monumental presences in a territory still marked by the traces of civil war and by ongoing identity-based, religious, and sectarian tensions.<\/p>\n

Through a long process of observation and movement across the territory, Salameh develops a reflection that intertwines political, spiritual, and autobiographical dimensions. The images thus become a site of confrontation with his own \u201cfailed return\u201d to his country of origin and with the memories of the Christian community in which he grew up, assuming the simultaneously distant and intimate gaze of the self-exiled.<\/p>\n

The project takes shape as a visual and affective archive composed of photographs, sacred icons, texts, and notes collected over sixteen years, eventually configuring itself as a sort of contemporary prayer book: a space for contemplation and conversation traversed by grief, memory, and the search for new forms of the sacred.<\/p>\n

The title, \u201cASNAM\u201d<\/em> \u2014 an Arabic term referring to idols and pagan statues \u2014 evokes the tension between devotion and idolatry, religious presence and symbolic construction, offering a reflection on the relationship between image, faith, and landscape in postwar Lebanon.<\/p>\n

The presentation is part of the collaboration between \u00c9glise<\/strong> and the School of Restanza e Futuro<\/strong>, which together in 2026 are co-developing the CorpiFuturiTerritori<\/strong><\/em> season: a programme intertwining artistic research, education, and public events.<\/p>\n

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Bio \u2014 Georges Salameh<\/strong><\/p>\n

Born in Beirut in 1973, Georges Salameh is a visual artist and filmmaker. He has lived in Beit Mery, Athens, Larnaca, Cairo, and Palermo. Since 1998, he has created video and photographic installations and directed documentaries and auteur films. His work and research are experiential, shaped around the concept of sedimentation \u2014 both physical and metaphysical \u2014 through a creative comparison between realities, languages, and narratives. His raw materials are archives, recordings, reconstructions, gestures, peripatetic experiences, and a deep sense of listening and hearing. His projects unfold over long periods of time. His narratives resemble letters to a friend, words spoken or unspoken, all drifting toward the current of oblivion. Yet oblivion, too, leaves sediments \u2014 on the surfaces of cities and in the depths of seas. Over time, these sediments may even become memory.<\/p>\n

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Book Specifications<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cASNAM\u201d is a book of photographs and peripatetic notes by Georges Salameh, enriched by the short story \u201cL\u2019Homme de la Montagne\u201d by writer Oliver Rohe and a concluding text by curator Natasha Christia.<\/p>\n

Designed by CHORA ATELIER and printed by Kostopoulos Printing House, the volume is published by MeMS\u00e9A (Athens, 2025).<\/p>\n

Produced in a limited edition of 350 signed and numbered copies, \u201cASNAM\u201d is presented as a thread-sewn hardcover with cloth binding and bronze lettering. The book consists of 212 pages, in 14\u00d719 cm format, and is published in French, English, and Arabic.<\/p>\n

The publication was produced with the support of AFAC \u2014 Arab Fund for Arts and Culture.<\/p>\n

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What is the tableau vivant?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The tableau vivant is an active mode of presenting photographic work. It is not conceived as a simple lecture, but rather as a moment of traversing the creative process: a device that brings images, narration, and space into relation, making visible the choices, passages, doubts, and transformations that accompany the construction of a project. In this perspective, the presence of the author and that of the audience become part of the device itself, activating a horizontal relationship and a deeper understanding of the research.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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