10 Questions with Ramzi Mallat

Al-Tiba9 Art Magazine ISSUE16 | Featured Artist

Ramzi Mallat is a Lebanese multidisciplinary artist based between London and Beirut. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Fine Art from Lancaster University and a Master's degree in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art. Mallat has been appointed a Trustee for the IMOS Foundation in the United Kingdom and was selected as a '30 Under 30' Lister by Forbes Middle East in 2022. The artist has had solo exhibitions at the UNESCO Palace and the Cervantes Institute in Beirut, Lebanon, as well as at P21 Gallery and Danuser and Ramírez Gallery in London, United Kingdom. He has participated in group exhibitions at Turf Projects, Standpoint Gallery, Candid Arts, and Storey Gallery in the United Kingdom. His most recent short film, titled Sobhiye (2022), has also been internationally awarded by multiple film festivals.

www.ramzimallat.com | @ramzimallatstudio

ARTIST STATEMENT

Ramzi Mallat’s artistic practice epitomizes the complexities of cultural identity within our ever-globalized society. Drawing from a rich tapestry of theological and folkloric knowledge from the Levant region, his work challenges the conventional notion of tradition as a civilizational legacy, revealing a narrative constructed by a society’s cultural vanguard in the course of a struggle. The artist navigates the intricate interplay between capitalism, labor, and everyday life, illuminating the mechanisms by which meaning is produced within our society. Through this visual lexicon, Mallat forms a nuanced tableau where collective consciousness is challenged by the tumultuous sociopolitical landscapes faced by nations and individuals alike. Mallat’s socially engaged artistic practice serves as a steadfast embodiment of resistance and the poetry exuded by unearthing suppressed historical narratives. Rooted in the investigation of cultural heritage, his works become tools to defy displacement, expulsion, and the perils of erasure. 

AL-TIBA9 ART MAGAZINE ISSUE16

INTERVIEW

Can you share your journey from Lebanon to the United Kingdom, and how your experiences in Beirut and London have influenced your artistic development?

My journey between these two countries has been a recurring one for many years as I had previously studied in the United Kingdom. However, I left my country and relocated to London after witnessing a failed revolution, a total economic collapse, and a deadly blast that ravaged most of the capital. The necessity for this move felt greater than ever at the time, not only to pursue 'greener pastures' but also to deeply reflect on what had transpired in Lebanon during the past couple of years. For some time, I had been stunted in my artistic endeavors due to the dire socioeconomic situation in Lebanon and had now found myself surrounded by a bustling artistic community. I slowly gained clarity and motivation to project all of the conflicting emotions I had buried to cope with the multitude of crises into my work. It was a cathartic experience that guided my practice. But I also realized that by doing so, my longing for home was growing. I was no longer able to engage with my homeland's heritage and landscapes in the same manner. This afforded me a newly formed heightened sensibility as I came to the realization that I had slowly eased into becoming a diasporic artist.

How did your studies at Lancaster University and the Royal College of Art shape your approach to art?

Studying in these renowned institutions granted me essential exposure to intellectual and academic excellence. I was able to access an education that focused on historical and theoretical frameworks that I still employ when discussing and debating art. During my studies at Lancaster University, while I was testing out a cohesive visual language in the studio, I became aware of the void that was growing in my knowledge due to the lack of teaching and resources regarding Art from the Middle East, Africa, and the Global South in general. I was very much imbued in a Western-centric frame of reference. After graduating, I relocated back to Lebanon and employed my newly formed critical outlook on our owninherited histories, living cultures, and social traditions. This was a formative experience to situate myself and my practice in the canons of contemporary Art. At the Royal College of Art, I delved into a myriad of technical facilities and explored new methods of making which had not been so widely available to me beforehand. I was also able to deepen my research into specific themes and topics that were poignant to my practice. Although most of this was independently instigated, I had a clear path provided by my extensive field research and forced fallow period in Lebanon. In that sense, my studies have been a cumulative force that has guided me as a creative practitioner.

Your work spans various mediums, including sculpture and film. Can you describe your creative process and how you decide which medium best suits a particular concept or project?

My creative process begins with a fascination with a particular object associated with an idea or theme. Firstly, I expand on the material aspects of that object and set out to retrieve a visual lexicon that is associated with it. I do this while also developing extensive research into cultural, anthropological, and theoretical references to employ as a framework for my mental gestation. From that, I begin to test out different mediums I believe could be suitable to producing the final work. Many times, I have found that materials dictate which medium is more suitable for a specific artwork, but I also have to keep in mind the experiential aspect of the artwork by the viewer as an equally essential component in the decision-making process. However, when it comes to making a film, it's a completely different scenario. I always collaborate with people on such a project and the ideation process is more porous. While the scripting and shooting phases are somewhat clearly laid out, the editing is very fluid and can sometimes change the whole direction of the film. It's also worth noting that some projects take years to get fully developed and flourish, while many other more ambitious projects never see the light of day. Yet, as I have progressed in my practice, I've found that these fascinations always find a way of resurfacing like unresolved emotions.

As a multidisciplinary artist, how do you integrate different art forms in your practice, and what challenges do you face when combining these mediums?

I don't originally set out to bring different disciplines together when producing work, it just happens organically. I like to think of these different art forms as being vignettes in a world-making exercise that is central to my artistic practice. Each of these affords me a specific methodology of working to produce a singular artwork that can both stand independently and as part of a wider stream of consciousness. These varied artistic endeavors become the most integrated during an exhibition as the culmination of my research and open up a visual dialogue between themselves. It is in that setting that I set out to turn the exhibition into a Gesamtkunstwerk or 'total work of art' by incorporating such a plethora of elements. However, one of the challenges I found to be recurring when combining them together is that the limitations of each medium become apparent. They are all powerful modes of portraying a specific experiential facet and possessing an intrinsic truth through which I can carry a message, but they individually fall short of projecting the connective tissue that binds them. This leaves the viewer to weave together these interrelations through an intimate investigation by inhabiting the space and sitting with the works.

As you mention in your statement, your art often explores the complexities of cultural identity and the interplay between capitalism, labor, and everyday life. What inspired you to delve into these themes, and how do you approach them?

It came out of a personal need to comprehend what I was inheriting from a cultural and socio-political perspective. As I was born during post-civil war Lebanon, I was left unaware of the region's recent history for most of my upbringing. It was evident that much of that was buried or left unspoken as a coping mechanism and under the guise of "no victor, no vanquished" to uphold a semblance of peace. Although there was this looming resurfacing of tensions that was apparent with every major conflict in the country, I felt that we were suffering from an identity crisis. Even though I was exposed to the rich cultural and visual symbols in our society, my memory assumed the shape of the city's chaos. So by dredging up heritage as a marker of our shared identity, I'm aiming to counteract erasure and collective amnesia. At the same time, globalization has commodified and reduced many aspects of heritage into touristic trinkets, leaving the task of performing one's traditions as an indication of exoticized otherness. In that sense, I'm interested in the counter-colonial act of re-contextualizing heritage to interrupt and innovate the performance of the present. 

Your artist statement also mentions challenging the conventional notion of tradition. Can you elaborate on how you deconstruct traditional narratives in your art and what you aim to achieve through this deconstruction?

I'm interested in the insurgent act of handling tradition. Whether that is by dismantling cultural tropes or resurfacing buried narratives within my practice, I place heritage as a revolutionary force in conceiving the future and locating contemporary sociopolitical discourse. Through this, my work also re-evaluates the nationalist narratives which see the nation as some kind of transcendent, continually coherent whole. I view this material reemployment of heritage as an entry point into history, where the past and present become part of the necessity of living rather than an idealized nostalgia and where the boundaries between global and local become indeterminate. I don't seek to merely recall the past but to renew and reconfigure it as a contingent 'in-between' space to open up alternative forms of conceiving the future. One example of this approach was reviving tassography, a fortune-telling method through the interpretation of patterns in coffee grounds that had originated in the SWANA region. I employed this tradition to produce work that was in collaboration with my community. By offering people coffee, reading their fortune in the grounds, and then preserving the used cups, I was able to create a body of work that stood as an archive of the imagined future in times of uncertainty. The liminal presence of the coffee cup highlights the borderline work of culture as an encounter with newness that is not part of the continuum of past and present but rather with manifold divergent meanings. At the same time, this visual cultural reanimation bridges the gap between the universal and highly specific through a critical understanding of our shared humanity.

Your recent short film, "Sobhiye," has received international acclaim. Can you tell us about the inspiration behind this film and the key messages you wanted to convey?

This project began on the first day of the October 2019 Revolution in Beirut; it was born out of an urge to document this pivotal moment in my country's contemporary history. I was gathering raw footage on the streets during the first demonstrations, and that brought me some clarity as to how I could piece together a trajectory for this film. However, as new events were constantly unfolding, it was very much a 'shoot as you go' scenario every single day. The whole process was very aleatory, and I wanted to relinquish control of the narrative as much as possible to allow marginalized individuals to speak truth to power. But when the August 4th blast occurred, I had to scrap the project entirely for many months to focus on helping my community rebuild and process the enormity of this disaster. I was only able to pick up shooting and editing after more than a year after this horrific day and found the mental headspace to assess how to proceed. I wanted to dive into Lebanon's living traditions through labor and contemporaneous struggles from the periphery towards the center of the country. I was inspired by Artavazd Peleshyan's‘ distance montage' technique of composition and incorporated some elements from that style into the film. One key message I wanted to convey was the constant looping of history. Rather than being seen as a linear transition, I wanted to portray these sequences of events as permeable and enmeshed. I also aimed to collapse and rebuild narratives throughout the film to layer meaning and reframe the viewer's perspective. I hope this film highlights the importance of archiving during tumultuous times and our agency as artists to represent subversive stories that wouldn't be documented otherwise and that also break away from preconceived notions regarding the region. 

Your exhibitions have taken place in diverse locations, from the UNESCO Palace in Beirut to galleries in London. How do different cultural contexts influence the reception and interpretation of your work?

Institutions like the UNESCO Palace offer an anachronistic framework to situate my work, so there is a very visibledialogue between the history of the space, its international cultural imprint, and the highly specific value added by my chosen body of work. Whereas most galleries are predominantly white spaces that function as a tabula rasa for artists such as myself to carry out a particular vision, showcasing our most recent work without the need for any direct frame of reference. Viewers also play a big part in contextualizing the work. Institutions such as the Cervantes Institute usually engender a more diverse set of audiences due to their varied programming; this granted me a multifaceted engagement with the public, and the practice was, therefore, exposed to a wider demographic of people. Some spaces, like the P21 gallery, function as hubs for their local communities and nurture discourse with their audiences. This proved to be invaluable when I had a solo exhibition in the gallery, as there was a deeper engagement with the audience, and I was able to forge relationships with like-minded individuals. However, the majority of commercial galleries tend to a very particular clientele, and while that does become somewhat limiting in the scope of reception, my practice garners the attention of audiences with a heightened sense of familiarity in the Art sector and that offers a more rounded interpretation that can situate my work in contemporary intellectual frames of reference.

What new themes or concepts are you excited to explore in your future projects, and how do you plan to expand your multidisciplinary approach?

I'm eager to delve deeper into monuments and their role in shaping collective consciousness. Since public monuments are a largely contested subject, I'm looking to expand on that tension in coming projects, especially when regarding sectarian politics. I'm also looking forward to building on a series of bronze works that I started casting last year and tying this into a newly rekindled love of drawing. I've been deeply longing for the mountains in Lebanon and have been obsessively drawing them as a coping mechanism for the ecocide that is being carried out on the country's southern border due to the conflict in the region. Additionally, I am experimenting with new unconventional materials to incorporate them into my practice while continuing my research into Levantine cultural motifs. 

Lastly, can you share any upcoming projects or collaborations you're currently working on, and what can audiences expect from your future work?

In the next coming months, I'm hoping to release my first upcoming artist book, which spans over a decade of my practice and includes contributions by a variety of curators, academic writers, and fellow artists who discuss and delve deeper into the themes of my work. I'm also in the developmental phase of a new film that explores speculative fiction and toys with artificial intelligence. I'm currently in the process of writing the script while conducting invaluable research into fractal storytelling. Additionally, I'm in the process of organizing some exhibitions and collaborations with spaces in Beirut as well, since more than ever, there is an urgency for visibility and representation, and I believe that it is our duty as artists to reflect the times we live in.