Paris Without a Sea, Mounira Al Solh, 2007-8
    Cinema Fouad, Mohamed Soueid, 1993

    Friday, May 20 at 1pm (Introduced by Leila Pourtavaf)
    Sunday, May 22 at 1pm


    Guggenheim Museum
    New Media Theater
    1071 5th Ave, New York, NY 10128
    Free with museum admission (Adults $15, Students/Seniors $10)


    Part of Hello Guggenheim: Film and Video Curated by Bidoun Projects

    Paris Without a Sea

    Mounira Al Solh, 2007-8, 12 mins

    The artist’s voice is superimposed over those of her interviewees: a group of men who swim daily at the beaches of Beirut. Through this and other editing techniques, Mounira Al Solh’s Paris Without a Sea questions presuppositions about gender, subjectivity, and the interview format itself. In her voiceover, Al Solh affects the accents and manners of her subjects, performing an oral drag that subtly interrogates matters of masculinity, such as the fraternity of Beiruti swimmers or the motley origins of names and nicknames as they relate to fathers and their sons.

    Courtesy Sfeir-Semler Gallery

    View artist’s statement on Gulf Labor Coalition



    Cinema Fouad

    Mohamed Soueid, 1993, 41 mins

    Cinema Fouad is a documentary portrait of Khaled El Kurdi, a Syrian trans woman living in Beirut where she earns a living as a domestic worker and belly dancer. Soueid shows us scenes of El Kurdi’s domestic world: eating, applying make-up, dancing in her bedroom, all while reflecting on her life and experiences. She often alludes to the aggressions she faces outside of the home—in the street—and through her adept defiance in the face of some of Soueid’s more goading questions, we recognize the echoing of these aggressions in his role as interviewer.