Walid Ra'ad

A native of Lebanon now living in New York, Walid Ra'ad introduces this multimedia presentation that uses the "archives" of an imaginary nonprofit group to investigate Lebanese history and identity. A native of Lebanon now living in New York, Walid Ra'ad is the founder of The Atlas Group, an imaginary nonprofit organization established in 1999 to document and explore contemporary Lebanese history.

The Loudest Muttering Is Over is a multimedia presentation that uses materials drawn from the group's "archives"—photographic stills, notebook pages, and short video works—to discuss the conflicts that wracked the country from 1975 to 1996. The interactive presentation invokes fictional characters to comment on actual circumstances, questioning how we continue to make "sense" of war.

Ra'ad's work has been exhibited widely in the US, Western Europe, and the Middle East, and included in the Whitney Biennial and Documenta 11. In 1993, he postproduced his video Up to the South (codirected with Jayce Salloum) in the Wexner Center's Art & Technology studio. Tonight's presentation is part of Identity Formation in the Arab World, a collaborative program at the university.

See the public programs section of the web site for details on the April 16 Interventionist Theatre Symposium, which is also part of the Identity Formation in the Arab World program.

Cosponsored by OSU's Mershon Center, Middle East Studies Center, Department of Comparative Studies, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, and Department of Theatre.