KickQueen: The body, the story, and the icon

In the realm of the KickQueens, Malak Alawye breaks time's cyclicality when she hits an armed man in the crotch. She takes Lebanon out of its traumatic loop and into a linear dimension where progress is possible. KickQueen is a semi-fictional, semi-factual reflection on the icon of the October 2019 uprisings in Beirut. It is a magic potion against forgetting. It asks us to remember: "What does it mean to kick an armed man in the crotch? How does this gesture live in our embodied collective?" Calling on a gesture's cite-ability, reenactment, and potentiality, the research behind this project addresses the limits of the icon both within and without the body, exposing its representational successes and failures while at the same time investigating how a hybrid narrative can translate into a multi-media installation using video performance, sculpture, and sound.