Through three intertwined notes, Marwa Arsanios traces the animal’s entanglement with the histories of land, labor, and resistance. Moving between the silkworm, the grazing herds, and the robotic dog used in warfare, the essay connects each animal to changes in the landscape: from collective farming in mashaas, to reorganisation of land into plots of private property and to violent land theft.

This audiovisual essay is structured around three notes, departing from an encounter with the animal as an agent/instrument in a new stage of colonial capitalism; the silkworm, the grazing herds and the robot dog (weapon). Each of them come to the foreground while unpacking their direct connection to the dismantlement of the commons, the institutionalisation of private property and land theft.

This essay will take us through different levantine geographies, from a masha’a land in the Bekaa valley to the ruins of a silkworm farm in Mount Lebanon and more. The introduction of silk production happened in a pre-capitalist moment that preceded the arrival of the French and British colonial mandates to the region.

At the center of the history of the silk trade is an animal; the silkworm, that is put to work in domestic spaces and later on in farms. This will affect other grazing animals’ movement as monoculture of mulberry trees comes with the silkworm. It is also the beginning of the dismantlement of the mashaa which will affect farmers’ work and create a new category of laborers in the silkworm factories. The animal, the female workers at the farms and the farmers on the field were the main hands producing the valuable silk threads for export. This is also when workers’ organising and demands for better work conditions started forming.

The political animal is born from this encounter with the oppressor and the oppressive conditions. We will go through different forms of resistances and the appearance of political animals in the different encounters with the mashaa, its dismemberment, the silkworm farms and more.

MARWA ARSANIOS

Marwa Arsanios’ practice tackles structural questions using different devices, forms and strategies. From architectural spaces, their transformation, and adaptability throughout a civil war, to artist-run spaces and temporary conventions between communes and cooperatives, her practice tends to make space within and parallel to existing art structures. This allows experimentation with different forms of assemblies. Film becomes another device and space for connecting struggles through images and montage.
In the past nine years, Arsanios has been attempting to think about these questions from both a new materialist and a historical materialist perspective. She has worked with different feminist movements that are in a struggle to reclaim their land. Her focus includes questions of property, law, economy and ecology examined through specific plots of land. She also studies the histories of the commons in the Levant region. Arsanios has been part of several artist collectives and initiatives. The most recent involves the legal communalisation of a land in North Lebanon through its transformation to a Mashaa.

Several solo exhibitions have been dedicated to her work: Heidelberger Kunstverein, Germany (2023); Mosaïc Rooms, London (2022); Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati (2021); Skuc Gallery, Ljubljana (2018); 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).

Her work has also been featured in numerous group exhibitions including: Documenta 15, Kassel (2022), 11th Berlin Biennale (2020), SF Moma, San Francisco (2019), Home Works Forum, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut (2010, 2013, 2015), New Museum, New York (2014), 55th Venice Biennial (2013), M HKA, Antwerp (2013), and the 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011).

Part of BEK symposium The Only Lasting Truth is Change: Voice, Seed, Brutality.
21–23 November 2025
Bergen, Norway