AWARE and Union Quoi? International·e, an artists collective associated with the Villa Vassilieff’s research center and library, are pleased to invite you to the 2023 – 2024 academic year book club.

For this first session, conceived and led by Kenza Belkadi, we invite you to read extracts from three works :

• a text by Camille Henrot, Grosse fatigue, written for a video produced in 2013;

• selected excerpts from My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter, published in 2017 by African-American poet and activist Aja Monet;

• and finally, the poetry collection Zaatar, published in 2023 by Greek-Lebanese author Sofia Karampali Farhat.

The session will begin with a group reading of Camille Henrot’s text, a poetic narrative that, despite its disjointed form, weaves links between different cosmogonies and creation myths. We’ll then compare texts by Aja Monet and Sofia Karampali Farhat, turning the classic linear reading on its head. The aim is to build bridges and routes between the lives and works of these two poets, one of whom grew up in Lebanon after the civil war, the other in the United States, visiting Palestine on numerous occasions. Both texts undo the border as a physical and memorial barrier, speak of exile and loss, and commemorate the female figures who fought to ensure that resistance poetry continues to exist as a space for struggle and empathy.

The reading will take place in English and French, using a method inspired by popular games to move texts and voices around the space.

Practical information

Tuesday, December 12, 2023, from 5:00 to 7:00pm