Haven for artists Based in Beirut Lebanon
Haven for artists is a locally based, non-profit, apolitical organisation operating out of Beirut, Lebanon since 2011, Haven aims to endorse, encourage and expose the modern underground art scene of Lebanon and the Middle East. Today, Haven for Artists acts as a network for a variety of local and regional artists, with the purpose of providing the necessary resources to forge creative collaborations and develop a community of artists; a community for the arts, by the arts.” Haven for Artists runs a multitude of programs and activities such as with gatherings, exhibitions, events, the Havenhouse, workshops, networking, residencies and a a fully equipped recording studio, logistical, technical and creative assistance which all Haven residents and artists have access to.
Haven gatherings and events attract hundreds of art enthusiasts and attendees and have hosted over 210 participating artist, by hosting 40 artistic gatherings, 35 screenings, 120 jam sessions, 2 festivals, and a 10 day Arts Fair hosted in the French Institute; which include exhibitions, musical performances, and spoken word.
At Haven, we work hard to foster collaboration between different artists and across disciplines, and we do our best to promote knowledge sharing in a sustainable manner.
overview-Haven for Artists and the work we do: we are an art collective based in central Beirut, but operational across Lebanon. We are youth and locally-run, and on top of that, we are apolitical and a ‘safe space’ where only art counts, and no other social or demographic markers. This is very important to how we operate in Beirut.
Our aim is to promote the arts - and specifically, talented and yet ‘underground’ artists - in Lebanon, by offering them support in their practice, and encouraging inter-disciplinary collaborations. We host a variety of exciting art events (exhibitions, festivals, concerts, jam sessions, screenings, poetry slams…) across the country on a regular basis, and from our ‘Haven House’ in central Beirut, we offer a changing weekly schedule of workshops, discussions, screenings and exhibitions. We also have a concept store where we sell our artists’ work, and we are proud to offer a bookshop of works that are very difficult - if not impossible - to find in Lebanon!
This year (2016/2017), we launched our residency programme, which we are very, very excited about! To date, we’ve hosted Belgian, Spanish, Brazilian, British, German, French, Swiss, Syrian and Lebanese artists, and we are currently in the process of selecting our next residents. We have space for four residents at a time, and our residencies are individually-tailored, and on a project-basis. Haven also runs an in-house gallery and recording studio which residents and Haven artists have access to.
We’d love to talk to other organizations more about the residency programme listings they have, and how we could potentially collaborate and/or exchange artists, ideas or just join the network that assists artists in linking to one another, to break from the cultural and border restraints of the world and create a more open dialogue for arts and culture.
**A short summary **
Dayna Ash’s project :
I grew up in California as a kid, yet I was not a very good kid (in my parents perspective) and it took me 12 years to make them proud, a long and challenging road but one worth it to the very end. Coming from the states it was easy to visualize something better as I have seen it, in the sense of freedom to build, aspire and grow.
“I came here 12 years ago to save myself from my mistakes as a child, and when I failed here-as I also made a lot of mistakes here- it became a journey in which i hoped to accomplish a better understanding of myself and that which I wa lacking. I needed to learn how to save my own future from my past, as I don’t believe in present.”
I am not here to save beirut or lebanon nor to get the artist out of depression(on the contrary they can create better art like this). If we don’t act and better life for ourselves, no one else is going to feel the need to change and empower or strengthen the ones around them. I do all I do to save my own life and when I do good my brother will do good and his friends and the chain reaction goes on.
I started the project because I needed it, I needed this space and sense of community. And the Haven house became “freedom” in walls. The point is to empower one another with intellect and ideas, with opinions and hope, will and ambition.
“I needed my city to be better than it was and I needed to know that I can stay here because I didn’t have the passport to leave it. So I needed to be better for me and better for my community so we can have a reason to stay”
I received a lot of support emotionally mentally physically and on ground support from my beautiful group of friends
Haven gives me the freedom to [not be afraid to] fail. It didn’t stop me from changing and failing.
It all started under a staircase where tina and chris performing and saying their poems (30 persons listening) then it grew up,one gathering after the next- one gathering after another, and then we realized that we don’t have enough space to put all these musicians on stage . There we realized that people needed it; they needed to share the stage not to fight for it, they needed this sense of community/ brotherhood/ sisterhood. And here, I sensed a lot of oppressive facets that I knew I had to change, the competition placed on the shoulders of artists. The competition with one another for attention, for admiration for a sense of recognition. I hope that the art is enough to discuss, to engage one another in- to grow and inspire one another, and even in judgement to take it in if constructive, bars and venues that encourage but also cripple by creating competition and strife within the whole.
For 5 years we had no idea what to do, we took it one step at a time, I wanted to be an NGO to be apolitical and non-religious not an association or corporation (I think in Lebanon on the basses if you are an organization with a lot of reach you will be of an impact or encouragement in a sense)
I just wanted a salary to live from, didn’t want to make money with this. Also I refused to get help from my family or father’s contacts.
Haven saved me, as it was never one thing,or one role. it was never just visual arts or never just writing, never just for Lebanese or just for Palestinians it was and is for everyone from every discipline and also those without. A safe and welcoming space for artists and thinkers alike.
Haven when it started was my way to empower my writing, I’ve been writing since I was a kid, so Haven gave me my first platform. It encouraged me and others to try, to express, to fail. It is was all ok; it was accepted to fail and accepted if you found the answers you had been looking for.
Challenges
The hardest and most challenging hurdle Haven and I have faced was getting registered as an official NGO.
At first it was a mIsunderstanding and miscommunications due to the somewhat of a- if not completely- faulty system.
For the past 5 years it was a bureaucratic dilemma but then it was all put on hold for 2 years and then it took a year and 3 month till we finally we got the approval (yet still didn’t formally finished complete.)
Everything in this city is against whatever u create and at the same time always with you. This create this paradox or contradiction is the constant struggle; you think you have succeeded only to realise you haven’t- over and over again.
Reaction of society
I have mixed feeling about society; a lot of people want us to get more political and more activist-like there are lots of artists-they think artists should be more involved. But I don’t think so, I think art is not confrontation, it’s more about freedom of expression and allowing a voice to exist among others.
I think that the good impact of Haven is that it reminds people that they are not alone, that there are others who think and are moved just as they are. That the questions that haunt and plague them are not only theirs to bear. The freedom to be yourself and not question your validity.
How can I help others?
By giving them the freedom that they didn’t have when they were young, the freedom to think more and question more. As well as giving them a supporting community, we all need someone who understands and relates, it is a common bond that we all share, the need to belong. I hope belonging can be accessible again by reminding them that they are individuals and not to follow the social understanding of freedom, expression and the notions that drive us. Books are there to educate and encourage not to baffle and constrain, books alone cannot teach you- a community can raise and alter your perception. It becomes easy to succeed if you depend on art as the commodity and community as the well.
What I want to change in the world?
I want to change the constant misinterpretation or misconception.
I don’t build bombs.The Middle East is not simply summed up into war; Middle Eastern artists have more to say, the East has more to say.
I hope to make people realise that what you know doesn’t mean it is reality; it is just what you know for now.
And In Lebanon, we want to remind people you don’t wait for someone, or some politician to give a better life and feed you. Because in the end, only art can save us.
