The Archive Lured Me In
Join us for an evening of conversation on the processes, challenges and epiphanies of research-based art. Monya Riachi (Lebanon), Reman Sadani (Iraq) and Mayssa Jallad (Lebanon) will be presenting excerpts of their individual projects, as well as engaging in reflections around their practice. The talk will be moderated by Rahaf Zaher, Researcher, PROCOL Lebanon, Institute for Global Prosperity (UCL)
The talk will begin with 10 minute presentations by each artist and will be followed by a Semi-Structured discussion
SPEAKERS:
Monya Riachi, Speaker and artist, independent
Reman Sadani, Speaker and artist, independent
Mayssa Jallad, speaker and artist, independent/Institute for Global Prosperity
Rahaf Zaher, moderator, Institute for Global Prosperity
Monya Riachi is an interdisciplinary artist. Her practice is material driven and research-led, and is explored through sculpture, installation, moving image, sound and writing. Her work centres matter as a site of meaning, narrative and archive, and explores themes around loss, ecological transformation, the politics of land and time. Through a broader meditation on socio-ecological transformation, her practice engages with Karen Barad’s theory of agential realism - where matter is generative in bringing forth [new matter and] new worlds.
Monya is based in London and works between the United Kingdom and Lebanon. She is the recipient of the 2024 Lewisham Arthouse Graduate Award. Her work has been exhibited in Glasgow, Beirut and London. Previous residencies include Material Futures at Cove Park in 2023 and Ashkal Alwan Beirut in 2022. She holds an MFA with distinction from Glasgow School of Art and has a prior background in architecture
Reman Sadani is a moving image artist based in London. Her practice encompasses moving image works, writing and collaborative curatorial projects. With a focus on narrative films and through an experimental approach, she attempts to address the political conditions of the everyday and their impact on subjects in her speculative narratives, questioning how one can exit, protest, or re-imagine a given reality.
Recent screenings and group exhibitions include: London Short Film Festival (London), Pavilion (Leeds), Safar Film Festival (London), Mizna Arab Film Festival (Minneapolis), Open City Documentary (London), Aesthetica Short Film Festival (York), Arab Women Film Festival (Rio de Janeiro), MoMa Modern Mondays (New York), Jerwood FVU Film Awards (London).
Mayssa Jallad is a singer/songwriter, architect and urban researcher from Beirut. Her first solo album Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels was released in March 2023 and told the history of the first high-rise urban battle in the world, in 1975 Beirut. She is in the process of writing her upcoming album, focused on events in the coastal Lebanese town of Saida, at the dawn of the Lebanese Civil War. In addition to being a musician, she currently works as an urban researcher in Beirut with PROCOL Lebanon, with a focus on citizen science, politics, livelihoods and infrastructure.
She has performed in venues and festivals across Lebanon and Europe, including Rewire (The Hague, 2026), Bozar (Brussels, 2025), Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris, 2024) and Silent Green (Berlin, 2024).
Rahaf Zaher is a Research Assistant at PROCOL Lebanon, Institute for Global Prosperity. She holds a Master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies from the Lebanese American University (LAU). Her research examines livelihoods and political experience in Lebanon, focusing on the intersections of survival, governance, sectarianism and (post)colonialism. Zaher’s research interests include participatory methods, political subjectivities, feminisms, and colonial and decolonial studies.
