Associação Cultural Videobrasil

An artist and filmmaker, AHMAD GHOSSEIN (Lebanon, 1981) works with various media, including film, video installation, public art and photography. Based on the collection and analysis of documents and found footage, he exploits the potential of moving image in the investigation of connections between individual experiences, historical events and collectively shared political realities. He holds a master’s degree in visual arts from the Oslo National Academy of Arts (KHIO), in Norway, and in theater from the Lebanese University of Beirut. He has exhibited at several institutions such as MoMA, New Museum (New York) and Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris). He took part in the Sharjah Biennial (2015).

The work AL MARHALA AL RABIAA (THE FOURTH STAGE) (2015) weaves together elements of film, magic and the changing landscape of southern Lebanon, investigating the motivations and implications of the disappearance of a famous magician and ventriloquist named Chico, whom the artist helped as a child. The pair would visit villages, performing illusion numbers for the region’s children. Concurrently we see the emergence of monumental geometric sculptures of vertical and futuristic shapes, as if heralding a future time. Situated at city outskirts or entrances, close to valleys and mountains and in public squares, they pierce the rural and urban fabric. From this composition, the work relates the magical universe of childhood to the ideological and religious systems conceived by political parties and by the national state.