A listening, illustration, and discussion event at the Mills Gallery
The Boston Center for the Arts is hosting an event in connection with its current exhibit, “Raafat Majzoub: GROUNDS,” curated by Artemis Akchoti Shahbazi. On Feb. 12, from 4-5 p.m., “GROUNDS: A Closeup on the Sound of Blooming” will be an audio procedure held on site. According to a media release, it will be “transporting the artist from Lebanon to Palestine—an otherwise inaccessible journey—through a radio broadcast. This is an open invite to a shared listening, illustration, and discussion of the art in the presence of the curator. Experience the effect and importance of sound in uniting people — even those separated by land, water, and socio-political tangles to help us build new grounds.”
The gallery offers this statement on the auditory piece, “A Closeup on the Sound of Blooming”:
During the space of Sonic Dawn in 2020, “A Closeup on the Sound of Blooming” enabled the impossible task of involving Majzoub in the process of reinstatement of 70 Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem demolished by the Israel Defense Forces on 22/07/2019. Through a radio broadcast, Raafat Majzoub travels to Palestine, a neighboring country that he is not allowed to visit due to a state of war between its occupant, Israel, and his nation-state, Lebanon. The audio recording plays the sound of him retracing architectural plans that prove the legal ground of the demolished buildings.”
The artist, Majzoub, reflected on what his work means to him:
“I’m critical of how we use the terms reality and fiction. I do not see them as opposites. Reality is a form of fiction that has been activated by power structures that benefit from it. Power structures decide what you think is real. My work in fiction is positioned in this reality-making process. I am not only interested in the imagination, but also in the reification of alternate possibilities. Writing becomes a form of architecture. And fiction can be seen as a tool for collective worldmaking that is intimate, speculative and political.”
Shahbazi also commented on how she approached the exhibit:
“When there is inclusion of what is happening now, almost automatically, the past is always included and simultaneously the future opens up, moment by moment. This has a major impact on my artistic practice because it determines if I am present and open to what I am creating.”
Shira Laucharoen is a reporter based in Boston. She currently serves as the assistant director of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. In the past she has written for Sampan newspaper, The Somerville Times, Scout Magazine, Boston Magazine, and WBUR.
