Biography
Artist and curator Moad Musbahi’s work investigates migration as a method for cultural production and political expression, focusing on the social practices and forms of knowledge that it engenders.
He curated In Pursuit of Images, Architectural Association School of Architecture, London (2020), an exhibition on the racial regimes of documentary film practice in relation to the work of Harun Farocki, and he was a member of the curatorial team for Rights of Future Generations, the inaugural edition of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial (2019). He co-organised ‘Instituting Destruction’, a project that brought together a group of architects, photographers and archivists, forming an association to document the destruction of community spaces and tombs in Tripoli, Janzour and Tajoura (2015–2018).
Musbahi presented Ikhtiyār and the production of (in)visibility, a lecture performance with Enass Khansa at the Publishing Maneuvers Symposium Public Sessions, Warehouse421, Abu Dhabi (2020), and Sufi Tombs and Sea Burials, Performing Preservation, a lecture performance at Jameel Art Center, Dubai (2020). His work has also been featured in exhibitions such as How to Disappear, Beirut Art Center (2019), and Architecture of the Territory, Beit Beirut (2019). Recent publications include Paper Nor Me_xx2: Beyond the Paper Principle (Kayfa ta, 2020); ‘Asl (Origin)’ in AA Files 76 (2019); ‘face me I face you’ in NOIT — 5: bodies as in buildings (Flat Time House, 2019); and ‘The Sahara Is not a Desert: Re-Mapping Libya, Unravelling the State’ in The Funambulist 18 Cartography & Power (2018).
Musbahi currently works on collective projects through MorningIndustries.org. He previously worked as a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London (2018–2020); an assistant archivist at the Computer Arts Society, London, supported by the Paul Mellon Centre (2013–2015); and a translator for the Tunisian Red Crescent and UNHCR in Tunisia and Libya (2011). He participated in the Library on Fire residency, LUMA Foundation, Arles, France (2016), and The Supreme Achievement, CAMPO Space & Black Square Press, Rome (2015).
He attended the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London.
Musbahi lives and works between Tripoli and London.
SAF participation:
Production Programme 2020