Frame Of Accountability
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Through film, installation, writing and public engagement, Frame of Accountability investigates ‘risk’ as a lived condition, produced through the co-evolution of capitalist systems and violent conflict. The project focuses on the effects across Lebanon and Syria, with a view to understanding the wider regional and global consequences. Using revolutionary feminist, decolonial, critical-legal, and artistic theories and methods, the work explores ways of dismantling violence perpetrated through colonial mechanisms of governance, towards wider frameworks of justice and accountability.
Archival Research:
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With thanks and access to...
American University of Beirut Archives, Beirut Liddell Hard Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, London Middle East Centre, St Anthony’s College, Oxford Royal Air Force Archives, London The Arab Centre for Architecture, Beirut The Arab Image Foundation, Beirut The British Library, London The Fraud Debbase Collection at the Sourkauk Archives, Beirut The Imperial War Museum Archives, London The National Archives, London The Orient Institut, Beirut |
Helene Kazan, “Frame of Accountability: (Un)Touching Ground” 2022. Digital film still. Courtesy of the artist
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Film parts:
Beyond the Sky’s Limits narrates law as a consciousness coming to terms with its own failings: the speculative voice of a feminist, queered, decolonial International Law. Unravelling this complex non-human subjectivity, it narrates the drafting of the Rules of Air Warfare in 1923. As a study of the legal archival document reveals how these international laws of war become corrupted by the self-interests of the strong states and colonial powers involved in their making: their ambitions fail quickly and critically.
(Un)Touching Ground begins through the discovery of the personal archive of General Spears, the first British Minister of Lebanon and Syria who was closely involved in the Allied invasion of the Vichy French controlled territory in 1941. The film traces the multiple routes of the military campaign and its human and non-human effects as—under the legal construct of ‘military necessity’—two colonial forces fight for control of and access to natural resources across the territory.
(Un)Touching Ground begins through the discovery of the personal archive of General Spears, the first British Minister of Lebanon and Syria who was closely involved in the Allied invasion of the Vichy French controlled territory in 1941. The film traces the multiple routes of the military campaign and its human and non-human effects as—under the legal construct of ‘military necessity’—two colonial forces fight for control of and access to natural resources across the territory.
In Her View engages evidence depicting the sexual exploitation of an anonymous woman by occupying Australian soldiers in Lebanon fighting for the Allied forces in 1941. The film moves through the archival evidence to sense, trace and position her encounter as a formation of poetic testimony. This part of the film points to the lack of legal accountability for violence perpetrated at the scale of the body and the domestic through state perpetrated violence.
Project Credits: |
About The Artist: |
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Written and Directed by Helene Kazan
Cinematography by Jad Youssef Sound Design by Mhamad Safa Human/Non-human Modelling by Anabel Garcia-Kurland Language Translation by Ziad Chakaroun and Yara Hasan Graphic Design by Leen Charafeddine Research by Leila Sibai Web Design and Co-ordination by Saskia Hewitt With the voice of Sally Moussawi (foa-ihv) TBC |
Helene Kazan an artist, writer and educator. Her work has been exhibited and published internationally. She received her doctorate from the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London.
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Frame of Accountability, has been developed, in part, during a 2018-2020 Vera List Center Fellowship at The New School. It has been supported by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics and its Advisory Board.
The project has also been developed with thanks and support from the 2022 Graham Foundation Grant Award, Beirut Art Centre and
Oxford Brookes University.
The project has also been developed with thanks and support from the 2022 Graham Foundation Grant Award, Beirut Art Centre and
Oxford Brookes University.
EVENTS
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Helene Kazan, “Frame of Accountability: In Her View,” 2022. Digital film still. Courtesy of the artist
Helene Kazan, “Frame of Accountability: (Un)touching ground,” 2022. Digital film still. Courtesy of the artist
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