Chalk Outlines

Chalk Outlines is a series of more than 100 drawings of dead people, collected from news photographs of the last eight years related to people who were killed during wars or while trying to escape the atrocities of wars. Originally made in a notebook as daily contemplation of the never-ending destruction of human life, this work depicts the dead as shadows or as chalk outlines at a crime scene, seen in isolation on the blank page.

Chalk Outlines speaks to the unresolved presence of the dead in our daily life, as (re)presented in a van; a vehicle that is used widely as a way to smuggle refugees from one country to another by crossing controlled and secured borders. Chalk Outlines obscures visual content and foregrounds the intimate act of drawing as a way resisting the unnaturalness of death itself.

Rabih Mroué is a theatre director, actor, visual artist and playwright. Rooted in theatre, his work includes videos and installation art; the latter sometimes incorporates photography and texts. Mroué is a contributing editor of TDR/The Drama Review. He is also a co-founder of the Beirut Art Center (BAC). He was a fellow at The International Research Center: Interweaving Performance Cultures, Freie Universität, Berlin (2012–14). He is an associated theatre director at Münchner Kammerspiele.

He has performed and exhibited internationally, including at MoMA, New York (2015); SALT Galata and SALT Beyoğlu, Istanbul (2014); CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid (2012–13); dOCUMENTA (13); ICP Triennial of Photography and Video, International Center of Photography, New York (2010); and Centre Pompidou, Paris (2007); among others. He was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and currently lives in Berlin.