“Hader Halal” (With Regard to Presence) by Fehras Publishing Practices

December 19, 2023

Video from online lecture performance co-presented with the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School.

Fehras Publishing Practices presented an online lecture performance, performed by Sami Rustom and Nancy Nasr Al Deen, in collaboration with Sina Ahmadi. Fehras Publishing Practices shared 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.

Video documentation of the talk is in the original Arabic. English subtitles are available.