How to Maneuver: Pillars of a Palace as Palm Trees

Hussein Nasser El Din is a visual artist who lives and works in Beirut. The works of preparation, photography, and writings that he produces stem from a practice dealing with language and constructing fragile edifices - some linguistic, some auditory, and some physical - rooted in collective histories, and their sources are drawn from poetry, ruins, urbanism and the image industry. His work often echoes personal/historical observations and narratives that relate to broader interests in historiography and edifices.

Kayfa ta is a publishing initiative that uses the popular form of how-to manuals (how=kayfa, to=ta) to respond to some of today’s perceived needs; be they the development of skills, tools, thoughts, or sensibilities. These books situate themselves in the space between the technical and the reflective, the everyday and the speculative, the instructional and the intuitive, the factual and the fictional. Kayfa ta was founded in 2012 by Maha Maamoun and Ala Younis.