Marwa Arsanios
How are we choosing to live and survive today? Can ideologies be transformative? How can life be fostered within the context of military conflict and war? Marwa Arsanios’ artistic practice questions not only the ways in which ideology and theory coincide with living practice but also whether “we” who are outside these circles of struggle can embody answers.
The first two parts of Arsanios’ film trilogy ›Who is afraid of ideology‹ are shaped around interviews the artist made with members of the Kurdish Autonomous Women’s Movement in Iraqi Kurdistan and Jinwar, a women-only commune in northern Syria, exploring the possibilities of a political praxis based on an existence close to nature and within armed struggle. While producing the films, Arsanios organized different meetings with women farmers and ecological feminists from Syria, Lebanon, Colombia, Mexico, India, Poland, Denmark, and Greece to exchange knowledge around their cooperatives and communes.
PACT Zollverein presents the second part of the project, which is filemd in the village of Jinwar in northern Syria. Arsanios’ film looks at different ecofeminist groups including the Autonomous Women’s Movement in Rojava and the way they attempt to take care of the land and themselves. Taking this as an example of an alliance between a community of women, nature and animals, Arsanios focuses on different aspects that such alternative economu and world re-building proposes. The film problematizes the role “naturally” assigned to women, potentially falling back into care work.
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Marwa Arsanios lives and works in Berlin as an artist, filmmaker and researcher whose work can take the form of installation, performance and moving image. She reconsiders the political development of the second half of the twentieth century from a contemporary perspective, focusing on gender relations, collectivism, urbanism and industrialization. Her research work includes many disciplines and is deployed in numerous collaborative projects. Several international, solo exhibitions have been dedicated to her work, which has also been shown in various group exhibitions. Her films have been presented internationally in cinemas and festivals. She has received several awards for her work. Arsanios is the co-founder of the 98weeks Research Project.