Beyond
Orientalism(s)

This website invites you into an unfolding archive shaped through a two-year collaboration between the Art History and Curating Program at the American University of Beirut and Cultures of the Curatorial at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig. 

Beyond Orientalism(s) – Towards New Infrastructures set out to disrupt entrenched asymmetries that define cultural exchange between Lebanon, the SWANA region, Germany, and Europe. Through a broad spectrum of artistic, curatorial, and scholarly explorations, the project examined entrenched discourses of Orientalism(s) while striving to create spaces in which new relations could emerge. Together with participants, it asked what sustains connections across structural divides—and what forces fracture or sever them. As an unfinished yet evolving record, this website documents, expands upon, and reflects on these processes—tentatively exploring their further potential. 

You can access the carefully assembled content through an undisciplined GLOSSARY of keywords. In this way, we aim to offer a playful and non-hierarchical approach to the material—one that resists linear logics of representation. 

Under the RESEARCH section, you will find an overview of the project’s public formats—lectures and presentations, workshops, interviews, co-participatory seminars, three exhibitions, and a series of digital conversations. These are organized into what we call Chapters. Each Chapter represents a distinct framework and includes details on locations, dates, participants, research outcomes, and, where available, downloadable materials.

This publication acknowledges that the project was made possible through the dedicated contributions of all participants who, despite numerous challenges, remained committed to the process. Beyond providing each contributor with a dedicated digital environment within their respective Chapters, all contributors are sincerely recognized in the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS section, even when, for security reasons, some cannot be named openly.

It remains essential to emphasize that, against the backdrop of a rapidly shifting geopolitical landscape, the project’s timeline unfolded alongside the Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel’s cross-border attacks and bombardments in Lebanon, and the genocidal warfare in Gaza. These events, along with Germany’s proclaimed “Staatsraison” and its manifold political entanglements, profoundly transformed the project’s premises and curatorial intentions. The simultaneity of the project’s activities with these violent upheavals fundamentally reshaped the contexts in which its formats were received and interpreted, and not least led to self-censorship and withdrawals.

Within the collaborative processes, moments of untranslatability emerged—epistemic and affective divergences that, alongside existing structural tensions, reflected the unequal positions embedded within global power relations. A POSTSCRIPT by the project leads seeks to frame these challenges and their wider implications in retrospect.

Having said that, we warmly welcome you as a visitor to our website and invite you to explore the content at your own pace.