Etel Adnan was an unassuming but major figure in Levantine culture, who has influenced myriads of artists and thinkers. Jassem Hindi will present the poem The Arab Apocalypse, a landmark work by poet and artist Etel Adnan, at the crossroads of pagan mythology, death, and war. 

In this epic poem, she demonstrates that understanding cycles of violence requires a commitment to language. To be able to approach the subject of war, she guides us through the baroque but cruel cosmogony of pre-Islamic paganism. Etel’s work captures the intensity of being alive in a time of darkness.

The Arab Apocalypse is both a labyrinth of suffering and an act of liberation, a space for healing, empathy, and love.

Jassem Hindi will explore how this poem has been interpreted, delivering a political, cultural and artistic context to its understanding. Like many other Levantines (Lebanon, Syria, Irak, Palestine), Jassem Hindi has forged his early years in Etel’s footsteps. Her texts and life experience have given him tools for survival.

Etel Adnan (1925–2021) was a renowned Lebanese-American poet, novelist, and visual artist. She wrote in French and English, and is known for her profound explorations of exile, war, and landscape. A prolific writer and painter, Adnan was recognized as a significant figure in both contemporary poetry and abstract art, with her work exhibited at prestigious venues like documenta 13 and the Whitney Biennial.

Jassem Hindi is an artist based living in Oslo, coming from Palestine / Lebanon / France. With a formal background in philosophy, his choreographic work investigates the relationship between haunting and hospitality, utilizing death poems, dance, and sound to physicalize epic scales of violence and slow revolutions. His hybrid work draws upon the "ruins" of broken texts, broken dances and broken sounds. His latest pieces (Sun Eaters and Laundry of Legends) have been presented internationally.