Of heroes, football, and all that remains of my childhood

In her performance Of heroes, football, and all that remains of my childhood Lynn Kodeih examines how politics affects the individual Lebanese's daily life. She collects stories and discusses what she refers to as Lebanon's "impossible revolution".

Through different media such as photo, drawing, printed material, found image material and video from Arab children culture from the 1970es and 1980es, she examines the terms belonging, bravery, enmity, opposition, death of a martyr and liberation in a country characterised by hope and the idea change is impossible.

"If the young generation of the Western World inherited May 1968, Woodstock and women's lib, my generation of young Arabs inherited the Nakba, Sabra and Shatila massacres. A history of endless civil wars and invasions", she says.

She describes her generation as sons and daughters of disillusioned fathers or kidnapped warriors fighting for so-called justice. They have inherited the fatigue of their fathers and almost more important; they have inherited their acceptance change is impossible. However, the recent events in Tunisia and Egypt have opened for faith in opportunities.

In her work Kodeih explores how to tell stories and to testify, and underlines the endless opportunities there are to rewrite history through personal narratives.

Artists from The Middle East and Norway were invited to take part in the 2011 festival with the backdrop of The Arab Spring with great changes in several Arab countries, as well as the terror actions of July 22 in Norway. The artists were given keywords such as tumult, terror, fear and sorrow, but also hope, love, conciliation and democracy to work from.

The performance festival 2011 was supported by Arts Council Norway, Public Art Norway (KORO), the county of Hedmark, the municipality of Hamar and the Boat Association Hamar Båtforening.

Source:

www.kunstbanken.no and the catalogue for the performance festival 2011 in Kunstbanken Hedmark Kunstsenter.