The Artist Dining Room: Etel Adnan

About

On Friday, 28th February, The Artist Dining Room at Guest Projects is pleased to invite you to explore the poems of the renowned Lebanese artist, Etel Adnan.

Adnan (b.1925) is a poet, essayist, and visual artist. Widely known for her poetry, novels and plays, she moves fluidly between the disciplines of writing and art and is a leading voice of contemporary Arab-American culture.
As an author of poetry and prose, she often addressed and protested against the turmoil of the Vietnam War and the Lebanese Civil War.  Informing her writing and later her artwork as well, was the landscape, its own history and her emotional and physical response to it. For Adnan, the landscape is mingled with memory, especially a sentiment of displacement, as she was born and raised in Lebanon, but has lived, studied, and worked in France and California throughout her life. 

For this special event, the dinner will take its starting point in her 1980 poem, The Arab Apocalypse. Guest Host and artist, Sophia Al-Maria will be leading the guests through the text course-by-course and verse-by-verse in a series of live readings and videos recorded in the many languages Adnan speaks by contemporary artists who have been inspired by her words.

There will be pearl divers and black suns and cosmic sailboats and firing guns. Expect a simple feast of plenty. Four naturally elegant courses studded with the glyphs Adnan peppers throughout her poem.
 

The unfolding of this meal encourages us to not just hear the words but to listen to them. And to not just eat the food, but taste it!