Al Solh presented a series of performances at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs exploring performance as a “live event” in the central conference room of the building, questioning the lecture/performance approach. and suddenly there were women consists of a fictitious-like and personal narrative about the specific context of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and what it means to stage a performance there. Inspired by the central conference room, which serves as the forum for many international meetings at the Ministry, and the portraits of all the previous—and predominantly male—ministers of Foreign Affairs and Development Cooperations hanging at the entrance to this room, Al Solh asks herself about how to define and defend borders, based on Regis Debray’s “L’eloge des frontieres”, and the representation of men and women in politics in the Netherlands in relation and in contrast to the Arab world and to this particular space: the ministry of foreign affairs in The Hague.

Curated by Claire van Els and Hendrik Folkerts, “time deposits” is a series of exhibitions and performances by artists Mounira Al Solh (b. 1978, Lebanon) and Marie Reinert (b. 1971, France). The central theme in time deposits is the current status of performance. The exhibition examines and questions the different ways in which performances can take place, which documents remain after a performance, and how performance art can be presented in semi-public places outside of the museum context. Reinert and Al Solh examine the relationship between performance and document by questioning the causality between the two elements.