Beirut Art Residency

Beirut Art Residency was a non-profit, artist-run interdisciplinary residency based in Beirut, Lebanon.

Background and program

Beirut Art Residency was founded in 2015 by Amar A. Zahr and Nathalie Ackawi in Beirut, Lebanon. The project offered a two-month residency program for 3-5 residents at a time. The artist-in-residence program aimed to stimulate creativity through interaction with local environments, artists, and cultural institutions, attempting to foster cross-cultural exchange between participants and Beirut’s artistic community.
The program consisted of artists from various disciplines, such as visual arts, concept and theory, design, film & video, installation, music and sound, performance, photography and curatorial research. It was in Gemmayzeh, which has numerous art galleries. The residency aimed to build community through interaction and engagement and provide a platform for communication between the invited artists and the Lebanese art scene.
A jury of local and international creatives selected the artists at BAR. The jury consisted of the following people:

Ziad Antar, photographer, filmmaker, and co-founder of the Third Line Gallery
Sunny Rahbar, director
Mari Spirito, art historian, photographer, and founder of Protocinema
Gregory Buchakjian,art historian & photographer
Myriam Ben Salah, curator and writer

The advisory board also included Ali Khadra, founder of Canvas Magazine, and Middle Eastern art collector Khaled Jalanbo.

Past Residents

Phase I : Sara Naim and Athier Mousawi
Phase II : Ivana Ivkovic, Lucienne Bestall, and Pierre Dalpé
Phase III : Ibi Ibrahim, Lara Ögel, and Evelyn Simons
Phase IV : Mary Ann Peters, Naomi Moser, and Amor Herrera
Phase V : Dexter Davey, Isaac Blease, Sumiah Salloum, and Asiya Alsharabi
Phase VI : Gianna Dispenza and Darryl Westly
Phase VII : Rehan Miskci, Nicolas Courdy, and Ragnheidur Gestsdottir
Phase VIII : Abdelkader Benchamma, Hilda Ekeroth, and Esmeralda Kosmatopoulos

''La Vitrine''

During the second year of BAR, La Vitrine emerged as a response to the lack of public art in the city. La Vitrine is a four by two meter, high-ceilinged room with a glass door acting as the only separator between the art and the sidewalks of Beirut. Artists are invited on a bi-monthly basis to work on site-specific interventions responding mainly to social issues and public space.