Panos Aprahamian in conversation with Viknesh Kobinathan

Panos Aprahamian (b. 1986, Lebanon) is a writer, filmmaker, and media artist from Beirut who currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany. His practice explores the spectral presence of the past and the future in human and nonhuman bodies, sacrificial landscapes, cultural practices, and social relations. He was a Home Workspace Program fellow at Ashkal Alwan (Beirut, Lebanon) in 2017-18 and an instructor in the Media Studies Program at the Fine Arts & Art History Department, American University of Beirut between 2019 and 2021. His film essays Odorless Blue Flowers Awake Prematurely  and This Haunting Memory That Is Not My Own (both  2021) earned the Ecumenical Prize at the 68th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (Germany, 2022) and the Jury Award at the 7th Festival Internacional Signos da Noite (Lisbon, Portugal 2021), respectively. He received the equivalent of a Bachelor’s degree in Media Arts from the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts, University of Balamand (2008), and an MA with distinction in Documentary Film from the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, where he studied as a Caspian Arts Scholar.

Viknesh Kobinathan (he/they) is a cultural worker, whose practice explores the gathering around sound and image as an act of care, healing, rest and refusal. An MA graduate of Film Studies from the National Film and Television School in England, they are based in Singapore where they were Programmer at the Asian Film Archive (2019-2024). In 2024, they were named as one of Screen International’s Future Leaders in programming and curation.