Biography

Marwa Arsanios is an artist, filmmaker and researcher who reconsiders the Middle Eastern politics of the mid-twentieth century from a contemporary perspective, with a particular focus on gender relations, urbanism and industrialisation. She approaches research collaboratively and seeks to work across disciplines.

Arsanios has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Beirut Art Center (2017); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016); Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2016); Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon (2015) and Art in General, New York (2015). Her work has also been shown in a number of group exhibitions, including Ten Years of Production Programme, Sharjah Art Foundation (2018); From Ear to Ear to Eye, Nottingham Contemporary, UK (2017); Home Return, Maxxi Museum, Rome (2017); Let’s Talk about the Weather, Sursock Museum, Beirut (2016); HERE AND NOW, Ludwig Museum, Cologne (2016); Thessaloniki Biennial (2015); Home Works Forum, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut (2010, 2013, 2015); Here and Elsewhere, New Museum, New York (2014); 55th Venice Biennale (2013); Meeting Points 7 – Ten Thousand Wiles and a Hundred Thousand Tricks, M HKA, Antwerp (2013); In Other Words, nGbK, Berlin (2012) and 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011), among others. Screenings of her videos have taken place at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2011, 2017); Berlin International Film Festival (2010, 2015) and e-flux storefront, New York (2009).

She was awarded the Sharjah Art Foundation Production Grant (2014) and Special Prize of the Pinchuk Future Generation Art Prize (2012) and nominated for the Paulo Cunha e Silva Art Prize (2017) She was also a fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany (2014) and Tokyo Wonder Site, Tokyo Arts and Space (2010). She is the co-founder of 98weeks Research Project.

Arsanios received a Master of Fine Art, University of the Arts London (2007) and was a researcher in the Fine Art Department, Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, The Netherlands (2011–2012).

Born in 1978 in Washington, DC, she lives and works in Beirut.

SAF participation:
Sharjah Biennial 14
Ten Years of Production Programme (2018)

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