BIO -
Known mononymously as Siska, the Beirut-born, Berlin-based artist and filmmaker works across disciplines as an educator and curator. As a culturalworker his aim is to offer critical explorations of themes such as memory, exile, trauma, identity and politics. His current focus is on postcolonial and cultural narratives with the theoretical and practical parallels between archival and archaeological practices. It is common for his work to take the form of extended cinema where he applies cinematic codes as well as film language in order to explore various visual narrative techniques. A key figure in the early Beiruti graffiti scene, Siska has also produced and performed music as part of the Lebanese Hip Hop group Kitaa Beirut قطاع بیروت.
His experience lies in curatorial work, visual dramaturgy, community organisation and long-term, research-based artistic projects. In practice, this means working across disciplines and contexts and focusing on how projects are developed, who is involved, and how people can take part. Over many years he has developed projects at the crossroads of art, education and urban public space, working with local communities, schools, asylum seekers, students, artists, social researchers, musicians, writers and neighborhood initiatives, with inclusion and accessibility as practical concerns that shape how each project is planned and carried out. As a curator he focuses on offering stage & spaces of visibility that arise from real needs rather than only spectacle, curatorial trends or administrative policies. His academic training is in Audio-Visual Arts and Filmmaking, in which he earned a Master’s degree in 2008 from the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts, École de Cinéma. He is currently the artitic director and curator of the Alternative Monument, an AR memorial to migartion in Berlin.
Further details on recent projects can be found through the links embedded in the text below:
In 2025, Siska developed in collaboration with Franziska Pierwoss Soundtrax for a Bazaar ($on’ny Music), combining live performance, music, and archival research to revive the cultural memory of Berlin’s Turkish Bazaar at the U2 Bülowstrasse subway station. From 2024 to 2025, Still Waters Run Deep, a 16mm film and performative intervention, explored water as a discursive metaphor and lexicon of migration, linking Liverpool’s history with collective memory. In 2024 he became the artistic director and curator of Alternative Monument also know as Alternatives Denkmal für Deutschland or ADfD, an Augmented Reality Memorial commemorating migration in Berlin that included workshops and public talks at Spore Initiative between other. In 2023, Port Fiction, including The Last of a Time, used archival research and interviews to document the Beirut port explosion and its aftermath (read article with siska here). From 2009, Das Kino Projekt a travelling movie theater that merged archives, installation, and experimental screenings across cities. Sunnosphere (2022) a musical concert and installation reflected on spatial histories and experimental music collaboration with composer Alexander Hawkins. Latent Border(s) (2019) examined migration and border politics between Beirut and Berlin. In the Ruins of Baalbeck Studios (2017) explored Lebanon’s lost cinematic heritage and the parallelism between film archiving and archaeology . EDL (2011) documented Beirut’s electricity building as a site of modernization and ongoing social conflict. At the Haus der Statistics in Berlin in August-2021, he co-curated a series of conversations, films, readings, and live performances as the artistic director of redeem ردیم, a platform for ongoing conversations between voices from Beirut in Berlin.
Known mononymously as Siska, the Beirut-born, Berlin-based artist and filmmaker works across disciplines as an educator and curator. As a culturalworker his aim is to offer critical explorations of themes such as memory, exile, trauma, identity and politics. His current focus is on postcolonial and cultural narratives with the theoretical and practical parallels between archival and archaeological practices. It is common for his work to take the form of extended cinema where he applies cinematic codes as well as film language in order to explore various visual narrative techniques. A key figure in the early Beiruti graffiti scene, Siska has also produced and performed music as part of the Lebanese Hip Hop group Kitaa Beirut قطاع بیروت.
His experience lies in curatorial work, visual dramaturgy, community organisation and long-term, research-based artistic projects. In practice, this means working across disciplines and contexts and focusing on how projects are developed, who is involved, and how people can take part. Over many years he has developed projects at the crossroads of art, education and urban public space, working with local communities, schools, asylum seekers, students, artists, social researchers, musicians, writers and neighborhood initiatives, with inclusion and accessibility as practical concerns that shape how each project is planned and carried out. As a curator he focuses on offering stage & spaces of visibility that arise from real needs rather than only spectacle, curatorial trends or administrative policies. His academic training is in Audio-Visual Arts and Filmmaking, in which he earned a Master’s degree in 2008 from the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts, École de Cinéma. He is currently the artitic director and curator of the Alternative Monument, an AR memorial to migartion in Berlin.
Additionally, Siska has collaborated on numerous performance and music productions, taking a midpoint between his career as a visual artist and performance artist. In 2022, he completed his residency and fellowship at Villa Aurora in Los Angeles. In 2025, he received the nGbK Art in the Underground Prize. Siska's work has been internationally shown, including Martin Gropius Bau (Berlin), Halle 14 (Leipzig), Paris 104 (Paris), Beirut Art Center (Beirut), Mosaic Rooms (London), Dada (Marrakech), Berlinale (Berlin International Film Festival) and Silent Green Kulturquartier (Berlin) among others...
Further details on recent projects can be found through the links embedded in the text below:
In 2025, Siska developed in collaboration with Franziska Pierwoss Soundtrax for a Bazaar ($on’ny Music), combining live performance, music, and archival research to revive the cultural memory of Berlin’s Turkish Bazaar at the U2 Bülowstrasse subway station. From 2024 to 2025, Still Waters Run Deep, a 16mm film and performative intervention, explored water as a discursive metaphor and lexicon of migration, linking Liverpool’s history with collective memory. In 2024 he became the artistic director and curator of Alternative Monument also know as Alternatives Denkmal für Deutschland or ADfD, an Augmented Reality Memorial commemorating migration in Berlin that included workshops and public talks at Spore Initiative between other. In 2023, Port Fiction, including The Last of a Time, used archival research and interviews to document the Beirut port explosion and its aftermath (read article with siska here). From 2009, Das Kino Projekt a travelling movie theater that merged archives, installation, and experimental screenings across cities. Sunnosphere (2022) a musical concert and installation reflected on spatial histories and experimental music collaboration with composer Alexander Hawkins. Latent Border(s) (2019) examined migration and border politics between Beirut and Berlin. In the Ruins of Baalbeck Studios (2017) explored Lebanon’s lost cinematic heritage and the parallelism between film archiving and archaeology . EDL (2011) documented Beirut’s electricity building as a site of modernization and ongoing social conflict. At the Haus der Statistics in Berlin in August-2021, he co-curated a series of conversations, films, readings, and live performances as the artistic director of redeem ردیم, a platform for ongoing conversations between voices from Beirut in Berlin.
