Rania Stephan, The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni (2011, 70 mins)

Rania Stephan, The Three Disappearances of Soad
Hosni (2011, 70 mins)

 

Tomorrow Wednesday, May 29th (6pm) at the Kadist, San Francisco is the publication release and series of talks and film screenings that examine issues called up by Etel Adnan’s practice, and expand its frame of reference.  The publication release and series are in conjunction with the exhibition “Words and Places: Etel Adnan” at the Wattis Institute, San Francisco. “Words and Places: Etel Adnan” is an exhibition curated by the graduating class of the 2013 Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice at California College of the Arts, currently on view at the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts.

 

To celebrate the release of the exhibition publication, a screening of Lebanese filmmaker Rania Stephan’s documentary The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni (2011) will take place at the Kadist Art Foundation. Stephan’s film investigates the career and mythology of the renowned Egyptian actress Soad Hosni (1943-2001) who, in 2001, allegedly committed suicide in London. Stephan’s work reexamines the legacy of complex representations of the modern Arab woman. Aside from being shown at institutions including PS1 and the Serpentine, the film was awarded the Artist Prize at the 2011 Sharjah Biennial 10, but has yet to be shown in the Bay Area.

 

 

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The publication, which accompanies the exhibition Words and Places: Etel Adnan, is titled The Ninth Page: Etel Adnanʼs Journalism 1972-1974 and collects and translates some of Adnanʼs contributions to the Lebanese francophone daily newspaper, Al-Safa. The articles document the rich cultural scene of Beirut on the brink of civil war, a political cataclysm addressed with great force in Adnanʼs landmark books Sitt Marie Rose(1978) and The Arab Apocalypse (1980). These writings have an immediacy that is distinct from the rhythms of her poetry and prose. The publication also includes newly commissioned essays that respond to Adnanʼs journalism and its fraught sociopolitical context.

 

For more information on the exhibition, please visit here.