The Search For Power / Tania El Khoury / Ziad Abu Rish

Thursday, January 9 -Sunday, January 19

The Invisible Dog Art Center and the Fisher Center at Bard are thrilled to present The Search For Power by Tania El Khoury with her historian husband Ziad Abu Rish, as part as Under The Radar Festival 2024.

On a night with a sudden electricity outage in their Beirut neighborhood, the artist and her historian husband discussed the history of power cuts in Lebanon. Born during the Lebanese Civil War, the artist had grown up with the understanding that the problem with electricity in Lebanon began during the war. The historian, however, recalled finding a government document dated 1952 that announced scheduled electricity outages across Beirut. The two decided to research the history of power outages in Lebanon, delving into the intersection between public utilities infrastructure, people’s relationship to the state, and various popular mobilizations to shape both. In time, they reach as far back as the introduction of electricity in Beirut before it was even possible to imagine a Lebanese state. In space, they collect documents across Lebanon and beyond its borders, visiting the archives of colonial powers: Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. What they find is a transnational story that locates electricity at the intersection of colonial legacies, the machinations of political and economic elites, and everyday acts of resistance, survival, and sabotage. The Search for Power is a lecture and installation performance featuring the artist, the historian, and the audience.

Collective Threads

Thursday, January 23-Sunday, February 2

The Invisible Dog Art Center is thrilled to present Collective Threads opening Thursday, January 23 to Sunday, February 2nd, an exhibition accompanied by two weeks of textile and fiber-filled workshops, demonstrations, and performances.

Ana Watterson, fiber artist, Gallery Manager of the Invisible Dog and organizer of Yarn & Yack, a monthly knitting and fiber workshop, put out a call for artists working in and around textiles.

Inspired by the warmth, community, and creativity cultivated in these monthly meetings, the goal of this show is to explore a shared knowledge of fiber arts, as well as spotlight individual artistic practices. Each maker has their own unique story. Whether learned from or inspired by a mother, grandmother, friend or the internet the work connects and exchanges individual stories and traditions. The pathways of these threads and fibers tell the history of how knowledge is passed, how bonds are formed and pieces composed.