USE FOR FUN // Beirut is

Gloriette Gallery - Beirut Souks Jewelry District -25th till 30th November 2016

Pencil 60 x 42 cm

I didn’t want to participate in an exhibition about Beirut,again.

This time the curator didn’t bother asking, she just signed me up.

I am once more faced with the same question, the same feeling of unease that grabs you by the throat. How do you define a city? How can you in a simple gesture draw what is a complex living organism that creates and destroys day in and day out individuals, buildings, public spaces and cityscapes,ideals and failed policies.

The task is ambiguous, confusing, yet very explicit. Defining the city, from an objective point of view, seems to be impossible because of all the contradictions and overlapping systems.

Throughout my continuous work on exploring the fine grain of the city, I realized it is resembled more a living evolving organism rather than a mechanical system.  It cannot be depicted by the sum of its citizen, nor by a specific drawing or a detailed study of the socio-political situation… The city is bigger than the simple sum of all that, it is a cluster of experiences that unfold in its space through time. Beirut resides in the daily lives of the unknown who shape up little stories that knit the whole picture together. It is a continuous process that will end once the city dies. The city fragments that remain will be transcribed from the collective memory, to a new public, through various mediums.

The drawing you are looking at is one of those fragments, one of those terrifying memories that occurred in the making of this city, was forgotten then revived on paper.

The drawing you are looking at is the view from the top floor of the Murr tower.

It looks at Beirut at the dawn of a new age. 

Press

http://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1020880/beyrouth-cest-quoi-au-juste-.html