Artist Talk with Ziad Abu Rish, Bard College.

This conversation was moderated by Katia Arfara, NYU Abu Dhabi.

Aligning with Msheireb’s “Kahraba street” and Doha’s histories of electricity, Tania El Khoury, an artist, and Ziad Abu Rish, a historian, created this experiential exhibition about the history of power outages in Lebanon, delving into the intersection between public utilities infrastructure, people’s relationship to the state, and various popular mobilizations to shape both. The Search for Power is a sound installation of a lecture performance featuring the artist, the historian, and the audience.

On a night with a sudden electricity outage in their Beirut neighborhood, the artist and her historian husband discussed the history of power cuts in Lebanon. Born during the Lebanese Civil War, the artist had grown up with the understanding that the problem with electricity in Lebanon began during the war. The historian, however, recalled finding a government document dated 1952 that announced scheduled electricity outages across Beirut. The two decided to research the history of power outages in Lebanon, delving into the intersection between public utilities infrastructure, people’s relationship to the state, and various popular mobilizations to shape both. In time, they reach as far back as the introduction of electricity in Beirut before it was even possible to imagine a Lebanese state. In space, they collect documents across Lebanon and beyond its borders, visiting the archives of colonial powers: Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. What they find is a transnational story that locates electricity at the intersection of colonial legacies, the machinations of political and economic elites, and everyday acts of resistance, survival, and sabotage.