Ya Libnan

The amazing Rania: Lebanese American artist to exhibit at the Smithsonian/ Update

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rania hassanLebanese American Rania Hassan ,  a mixed media fiber artist, designer, and printmaker who is based in  Washington, DC. will be  exhibiting installations that combine knitting and painting with fiber and wood to weave sculptural stories about our connections to time, place, and circumstance.

Her artwork is in the permanent collections of the National Institutes of Health (NIH, Bethesda, MD), Amazon Web Services (Herndon, VA), and the District of Columbia’s Art Bank Collection (Washington, DC). Solo exhibitions include The Front (New Orleans, LA), Gormley Gallery (Baltimore, MD), and Artisphere (Rosslyn, VA).

She has given presentations about her artwork at area Universities (George Mason University, 2014) and Museums (Textile Museum, Washington, DC, 2012, 2015), and her work has been featured in publications including the Washington Post, Washington City Paper, and Vogue Knitting.

Awards include a Craft Award of Excellence (2009) from the James Renwick Alliance and seven years of Artist Fellowship Program Grant Awards (2009, 2014–19) from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

All Ya Libnan readers who plan to be in Washington DC in June  should not miss  the opportunity to see Rania’s amazing installation that explores the delicate threads of directions presented, journeys chosen, and all paths leading you here—exactly where you need to be.

Rania Hassan’s work will be installed at the Smithsonian’s Arts + Industries Building

900 Jefferson Dr SW, Washington, DC 20560

The Smithsonian’s Arts + Industries Building is a main hub for By The People, a free international arts and dialogue festival celebrating life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness created by Halcyon. You’ll find stunning large-scale art installations.

AIB opened in 1881 as America’s first National Museum, and was America’s  original home for ideas about to change the world. Closed to the public for nearly two decades, AIB is now being reenergized a laboratory for imagining the future through exciting events, exhibitions, and collaborations.

Schedule

Saturday, June 15, 10am-6pm
Sunday, June 16, 10am-6pm
Friday, June 21, 10am-6pm
Saturday, June 22, 10am-midnight
Sunday, June 23, 10am-6pm

On Saturday, June 22, 2019, between 2 – 3 PM there will be a Special Smithsonian Event at the Smithsonian’s Arts + Industries Building (AIB) during which Artist Rania Hassan will discuss her career, perspective and work ‘Pathways,’ as part of 2019’s By The People festival which will be held from June 15-23.

Born in New York , Rania graduated  as a Graphic Designer from the American University  of  Beirut . For the past 6 years she has been awarded every year the Artist Fellowship Program Grant Award  from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

For Copyright reasons we cannot show her installation  before  June 15 . We will try our best to update this article after that date

Update
WUSA/9 the local Channel of CBS had an interview with Artist Rania Hassan and here is the video they released on the artwork that was displayed at the Smithsonian Museum . Click to view

Rania Hassan

rania smithsonian
The Smithsonian Institute published on its website this image of Artist Rania Hassan’s exhibit and this is how it was described : Artist Rania Hassan invokes strands of thread. When you knit something, she notes, “the whole structure is from a single line of thread. To me that’s really inspiring, because my work is about connection and how we’re all interconnected.” Threads can also be interwoven, of course, like the stories of people moving through places and moments together. These thoughts inform much of Hassan’s work. Hassan’s featured piece at By the People this year is Paths 7, part of a series examining the threads we follow as we make decisions throughout our lives—decisions which we often come to regret. Paths 7, a repudiation of this regret, takes the form of a strikingly symmetrical pile of gold leaf situated just beneath the tip of a drop spindle pendulum. It’s a clean, beautiful image that suggests serenity and perfection. Hassan sees it as a cosmic “You Are Here” sign. Hassan explains that the wondrous quality of the piece arose from her own wonder at the fact that everyone who would be seeing it at the festival would have arrived at the exact same place and moment in Washington, D.C. despite having followed completely unique paths in their lives up until then. She finds a kind of reassuring solidarity in that—the inevitable confluences of all our respective strands through time. “All of your stories are colliding at the same time,” she says. “This is where you’re meant to be. Everything you’ve done has brought you right here.”
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