The second edition of Problematising reality – Encounters between art and philosophy is a partnership between CAM – Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian, IFILNOVA (CineLab) / FCSH / UNL and Maumaus / Lumiar Cité. This series of six discussion sessions and four seminars takes place at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, focusing on the moment when art and philosophy establish productive dialogues, proposing diverse approaches to contemporary thought. Each discussion session departs from a partial or full exhibition of works of art in the medium of film, accompanied by a reflection led by theorists or artists.
 
 

 
 
The fourth session brings together artist Marwa Arsanios and writer and academic Ghalya Saadawi for a reflection prompted by the screening of Here and Elsewhere (Ici et ailleurs, 1976) by Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville. Based on footage of Palestinian fighters shot a few years earlier, and staged images produced in Paris some years later, the film reflects on the relationship between image, sound, and text as they operate within the cinematic apparatus and the representation of reality. Taking seriously Dziga Vertov Group’s (Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin) methodological injunction to make political films, politically, Godard and Miéville force a consideration of the conditions of production, that of images, of Parisian working-class family interiors, and of Palestine, through disjunctive montage, archival footage and didactic voice-overs.
 
 

 
 
 
Marwa Arsanios works as a visual artist, using various forms, strategies and devices, including film, as a space for connecting struggles in the way images refer to each other. Her solo exhibitions include shows at: Kunsthalle Bratislava (2023); Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati (2021); Beirut Art Center (2017); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016); Witte de With, Rotterdam (2016); Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon (2015); and Art in General, New York (2015). Group exhibitions in which her work was included: documenta 15 (2022); Biennale of Sydney film programme (2022); Berlin Biennale (2020); SFMOMA, San Francisco (2019); Sharjah Biennial (2019); Gwangju Biennale (2018); Ludwig Museum, Cologne (2016); New Museum, New York (2014); Venice Biennale (2013); and Istanbul Biennial (2011).
 
 

 
 
Ghalya Saadawi is a writer and a senior lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her teaching and research interests span critical theory, critical approaches to human rights, witnessing and testimony, law and psychoanalysis, aesthetics and politics, Lebanese art and documentary, among other areas. Between 2015-2017 she was Resident Professor of the Ashkal Alwan Home Workspace Program (Beirut), and has been theory tutor at the Dutch Art Institute since 2018. Saadawi is also a member of Beirut Institute for Critical Analysis and Research (BICAR). Some of her writing has appeared in magazines and journals such as Bidoun, frieze, Bidayat, the derivative, Third Text, ArtMargins, Journal of Visual Culture, PhiloSOPHIA, among other publications. Her forthcoming book Between October and November (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2025) is an essay on loss and the persistence of forms under an extended capitalist modernity.