Co-presented with the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School, Fehras Publishing Practices will present an online lecture performance, performed by Sami Rustom and Nancy Nasr Al Deen, in collaboration with Sina Ahmadi. Fehras Publishing Practices will share their research into the history and presence of publishing and its entanglement in the sociopolitical and cultural sphere in the Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, and the Arab diaspora. Engaging different methods and ways of production, the collective focuses on the relationship between publishing and knowledge production. Their practice is concerned with the role of translation as a tool facing cultural domination in its traditional and modern forms, as well as a tool for creating solidarity and deconstructing colonial power. The collective’s investigations and queer interventions into narratives take place at public libraries, book markets, and in private and institutional collections.

Currently, Fehras is developing a Palestinian library composed of written and audio materials primarily from Lotus: Afro-Asian Writings, first published in 1968 by the Permanent Bureau of the Afro-Asian Writers Association in Cairo, an entity of the Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity Organization. The talk will be held in Arabic and English.

Fehras Publishing Practices investigates a wide range of cultural and geographical landscapes in order to explore historical representations, the notion of the past in the present, and using archives for producing knowledge. Fehras initiates installations, films, publications and lectures aiming to extend the notion of publishing, with an emphasis on collaborating with other cultural workers in their communities. Recent exhibitions include Documenta 15, The Mosaic Rooms, Haus der Statistik, Ural Industrial Biennial, Crac Occitanie, MMAG, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Sharjah Biennial, and Kunsthal Aarhus.

Registration is via the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School.