Haig Aivazian

Haig Aivazian (1980, Lebanon) is a visual artist based in Beirut. His work traverses moving image, sculpture/installation, drawing and performance, and explores how power integrates, affects and displaces people, objects, animals, landscape and architecture. Between 2020 and 2022, he was artistic director of the Beirut Art Center, where he founded and directed the digital publication thederivative.org.

His residency project focuses on the dynamics between darkness and artificial light, a powerful beam that shapes and reflects the transactions of power and control in modern life. From its police origins, street lighting – a codification of the links between darkness and crime – has emerged as a central tool in the planning of cities and public infrastructure. Haig Aivazian uses the magic lantern as a base material, and tells the legal stories of who owns and who is dispossessed of the right to live at night; as well as the emancipatory rituals of those driven to hide or adopt reduced visibility.