Mireille Astore

Mireille Astore (Beirut, 1961) (Arabic: ميراي استور) is an artist and a writer. She left Beirut during the Lebanese civil war in 1975 to live in Melbourne, Australia. She studied the Sciences at the University of Melbourne where she graduated before becoming a full-time artist and writer. Influenced by Continental Philosophy, her art draws on autobiographical notions of representation and the unheimlich; where the conscious intersects with the unconscious.^[1] Through her art and her writing she "explores human emotions" and "asks what it is to be human".^[2] Mireille Astore attained a PhD in Contemporary Arts from the University of Western Sydney (2008). She is Adjunct Lecturer at Sydney College of the Arts, the Visual Arts Faculty of the University of Sydney and Research Fellow at the American University of Beirut.

Exhibitions

Mireille Astore's artworks have been exhibited and screened at the 2004 Sydney Film Festival; at the Freud Museum - London;^[3][4] at the Millais Gallery – Southampton;^[5] at Espace SD – Beirut; the Tate Modern – London;^[6] at the Centre Pompidou; ^[7] the 8th Sharjah Biennial 2008; and the 3rd Guangzhou Triennial.^[8] She has exhibited her photomedia artworks at the Conny Dietzschold Multiple Box Gallery - Sydney.^[9] In 2003 she won the (Australian) National Photographic Purchase Award.

Of Mireille Astore’s "Tampa" artwork which referenced the MS Tampa Norwegian ship, it was said:

"Just as Benjamin noted the contextual aesthetic consequences of the circulation of photographic images through newspapers and magazines, Astore’s combination of photography with sculpture and performance, circulated via her website, rewrites both photography and the spatial and interpretive dynamics of this installation work.” ^[10]

A short film directed by Astore that was based on the "Tampa" work, "Tampa: a Walk on the Beach", was screened in Sydney and London.^[11]

Short Films

After "Tampa: a Walk on the Beach", Astore's short film, "Not From Here" "questions the legitimacy of the original photograph".^[12] It has been shown in galleries and film festivals in over 20 countries. Some international screenings include the né à Beyrouth Film Festival in Beirut, the Toronto Arab Film Festival and the CinemaEast Film Festival in New York and the Konstföreningen Aura Gallery in Sweden.^[11] Another short film, "3494 Houses + 1 Fence", which juxtaposed images of houses in Australia with scenes from a war damaged fence in Lebanon "create[s] a striking picture of her awareness of the contrasts between her memories and her current life". It was selected to feature in the Women's Cinema from Tangiers to Tehran Film Festival^[13] and was included on the third volume of the "Resistance(s)" DVD series.^[14]

Performances

Mireille Astore gives public lectures and performances. Some of these took place at the 2008 Home Works IV,^[15] the 2005 Poetics of Australian Space conference - University of Sydney & Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, at the 2010 5th International Conference on the Arts in Society,^[16] and the 2010 Silent Spaces Exhibition at the Macquarie University Art Gallery.^[17]

Publications

Mireille Astore's artworks, poetry and fictocritical writing are published in: New Vision: Arab Contemporary Art in the 21st Century (Thames and Hudson);^[18] Art in the Age of Terrorism (Paul Holberton Publishing & University of Washington Press);^[19] Arab Women’s Lives Retold: Exploring Identity Through Writing (Syracuse University Press). In 2008, Mireille Astore co-guest edited Artlink Vol 28 no. 1.^[20]

References

1. ^ "New Vision: Arab Contemporary Art in the 21st Century" Eds. Hossein Amirsadeghi, Salwa Mikdadi & Nada Shabout. London: Thames and Hudson(2009), p. 80
2. ^ Nawar Al-Hassan Golley (ed.) Arab Women’s Lives Retold: Exploring Identity Through Writing. New York: Syracuse University Press, 2007 p. xxxiii
3. ^ Louise Gray, "Them Outside." Museum Journal (March 2007), p. 39.
4. ^ "Exhibition Archive". Freud Museum. http://www.freud.org.uk/exhibitions/10511/paranoia/6/. Retrieved 17 November 2010. 
5. ^ "Art in the Age of Terrorism". Southampton Solent University. http://www.solent.ac.uk/terrorism/exhibition.aspx. Retrieved 17 November 2010. 
6. ^ "Mireille Astore & Fabian Astore". IN FOCUS. http://www.infocusdialogue.com/artists/mireille-astore-fabian-astore/. Retrieved 17 November 2010. 
7. ^ Centre Pompidou. "Resistance(s) III". http://www.centrepompidou.fr/Pompidou/Manifs.nsf/0/22537C73C28313B3C125768500392438?OpenDocument&sessionM=2.4.1&L=1&view=. 
8. ^ Third Guangzhou Triennial 2008
9. ^ "Multiple Box Sydney Online". 2 Danks Street. http://www.2danksstreet.com.au/multiple-box-sydney.php. Retrieved 17 November 2010. 
10. ^ Hutchings, Peter. "through a refugee's eyes", Eyeline, issue 54, Winter 2004, p. 12.
11. ^ ^{a b} "From bush to the Big Apple". Penrith press: p. 34. 25 October 2004. 
12. ^ Abigail Dunn, Paranoia in Catalyst 7 July 2006.
13. ^ Women's Cinema from Tangiers to Tehran, London (February 2008) & Berkley (April 2009)
14. ^ Finkelstein, David (8 October 2010). "Resistance(s) vol. 3 (DVD)". Film Threat. http://www.filmthreat.com/reviews/26248/. Retrieved 17 November 2010. 
15. ^ "Home Works IV". Frieze Magazine (116). 2008. http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/home_works_iv/. Retrieved 17 November 2010. 
16. ^ Plenary Speakers, The 5th International Conference on the Arts in Society
17. ^ Macquarie University Art Gallery program
18. ^ "New Vision". Thames & Hudson. http://www.thamesandhudson.com/9780500976982.html. Retrieved 17 November 2010. 
19. ^ Graham Coulter-Smith & Maurice Owen (Eds). Art in the Age of Terrorism. London: Paul Holberton Publishing & University of Washington Press, p. 8.
20. ^ Hamilton, Ian (2008). "Editorial". Artlink 28 (1). http://www.artlink.com.au/articles.cfm?id=3066. Retrieved 17 November 2010. 

External links

• http://www.mireille.astore.id.au

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Name	Astore, Mireille
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