FFF6 | The Search for Power

A power outage one night in Beirut inspired Tania El Khoury to explore the history of power outages in Lebanon. Together with her historian husband, Ziad Abu-Rish, the artist set out on a journey that took them both all the way back to 1906, when Beirut still sat in darkness.

At first, their research centered on collecting documents in Beirut, but access to some of these proved difficult or even impossible. As the pair delved deeper into the history of electric power in Lebanon, they discovered a transnational story involving businessmen, politicians, warlords, multinational companies and colonial powers. They found traces of everyday acts of survival, resistance and sabotage by workers and users of electric power. The narrative framework of "The Search for Power" was molded out of these elements.

“I’m interested in the processes of writing history both in states’ official archives and in the oral records that write history from below.”, says Tania El Khoury. With her political performance installation "The Search for Power", El Khoury invites the public to immerse themselves in archival documents and inaccessible knowledge, in a personal quest for revenge.