Mai Ghoussoub was Born in Lebanon Mai Ghoussoub studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts Lebanese University before graduating from AUB (American University of Beirut). She moved to London during the war in Lebanon and studied sculpture at Morley College (Henry Moore Studio) and co-founded Saqi Books. Since the 1980’s she has been combining her activities as an artist, a writer and a publisher: ‘ I write for my sculptures and I sculpt for my words’. Her work has featured in many exhibitions including Under Different Skies, Copenhagen (1996), and Displaces, an installation on the theme of refugees at the Shoreditch Town Hall, London (1998). In 2000, she premiered ;'Divas' - an installation and theatrical performance - in Beirut, Paris, Newcastle and London.
In 2003, her installation ’What is the purpose of your visit’ was shown at the Fabrik in Berlin and she has recently written and directed and performed Texterminators at the Lyric and Dominion theatres in London. . She is now working on the installation Penelopeia / Shehrazad, a touring exhibition for an EU project moving to Chicago in March 2006. ’Leaving Beirut, Women & the Wars Within' was published in 1997. In 1991, she wrote an introduction to Postmodernism, in 1197 and in 2000 she co-edited 'Imagined Masculinities: Male Identity and Culture in the Modern Middle East.'
Souheil Sleiman, sculptor and son of Lebanese immigrants, I was born in 1952 in Lagos, Nigeria.
1970: I travelled to England in search of an art education.
Made the rounds of three art colleges:
1971 - 72 Salford Technical College (Foundation),
1972 - 1975 North East London Polytechnic
1975 - 1977, Royal College of Art.
I have followed in the footsteps of my parents, and my grand parents before them, and became an immigrant (an economic refugee) living in London.
1978, I rented my first studio in Wapping, London.
1986, I moved to a studio in Plaistow, London.
1998, studio in Hackney Wick, London
Over the years, I have made a number of collaborative works with other artists. My artwork is informed by political and social issues. My sculptures and site specific works have been exhibited in group and solo shows in England, Scotland, Wales, France, Holland, Germany and Lebanon.
1990: “Life Support” was the title of my first solo site-specific exhibition in Chatearoux, France.
2001: “Foreign Bodies” a site specific work was my first how in Beirut and Saida, Lebanon. Following its showing in London in the previous year, it was the subject of a poem by the poet John Welch.
2002: the artist Peter Kennard nominated me for the Paul Hamlyn Foundation award.
Like many other artists, craftspeople and other makers, I shall soon be displaced from my relatively cheap studio in search of increasingly hard to find affordable rented studios, thanks to the advance of property developers in anticipation of the 2012 Olympic games.
I am a member of the trade union BECTU.
