RELOADING IMAGES DAMASCUS

Reloading Images is an initiative of the Berlin based art association NewYorkRioTokyo. It is an interdisciplinary
artistic research platform, initiated by Azin Feizabadi and Kaya Behkalam in 2006. Reloading Images Damascus invited artists and scholars from Syria and abroad to discuss and explore ways of artistic practice and collaboration, based on an interactive exchange of experiences, ideas, know-how and tools of production and self-organization.

A series of public lectures and workshops invited 98 Weeks & Akram Zaatari (Lebanon), Interruptions Magazine (Jordan), Raqs Media Collective (India), Ubermorgen.com (Austria), Marie Elias & Orwa Nyrabia (Syria), Wu Ming (Italy), and WE INSIST (France/Norway/Sweden).

Reloading Images Damascus did not have one single theme. Instead, it aimed to reflect on the complexity of the circumstances and interrelations in which the project was located: the cultural, social, and economical aspects – as well as the location of the individual – within these structures.
One of the projects during the period was Secret Agency for Agency towards the Great Transition where WE INSIST was invited in as secret agents. The photo series by Sanna Miericke in this chapter is a re-enactment of their mission in a public park in the city of Damascus after they had been located in different parts of Damascus on their secret one-man missions.