Irena Eden, Stijn Lernout, and Chiara Ianeselli will come together during their residency at Le Cube in May 2024 to discuss connections in their research on the Mediterranean.
The talk entitled Tracing traces: research methodologies for the Mediterranean will focus on Eden and Lernout’s exploration of Sabir, a historic Mediterranean lingua franca, and Ianeselli’s research through MAXXI Med, which promotes artistic and cultural exchanges in the region and beyond.

Irena Eden & Stijn Lernout dealt with the Mediterranean region in their artist book “Circle Surface Sun – From Somewhere in the Mediterranean” (2020, Schlebrügge.Editor, Vienna). During their residency at ‘Le Cube’ they delve deeper into this cultural space. They focus their research on the Lingua Franca / Sabir, which was spoken throughout the Mediterranean between the 11th and 19th centuries. What significance did this language have for the geographical space, which today can be represented as both a place of longing and a hard border between the countries of the North and the Global South? How has the history of this cultural area been inscribed in the appearance of today’s societies? What could the idea of ​​a lingua franca be in the present under the conditions described?

Chiara Ianeselli, currently working on the development of MAXXI Med, in Sicily, researches on the expansion of imaginative relationships in the Mediterranean area.
In her exploration, she delves into the real and imaginary, where intangible and experimental methods of art making generate conduits, transcending linguistic and cultural barriers, dismantling – not traversing, frontiers.

photo: Irena Eden & Stijn Lernout, fishing harbor in M’Diq, Morocco, 2024