Lebanon 's architectural heritage .. When the images tell the hopes of freedom

Hafsa Alami-Paris

Twenty years after "Lebanon the Other Bank", the Arab World Institute in Paris, in cooperation with the European House of Photography, is hosting a distinguished exhibition of photographs entitled "Biennial of the Arab World's Contemporary Photographers", which will run until December 2.

Eighteen photographers, most of them Lebanese, gathered in Paris to showcase their images to preserve the memory of Lebanon's lost architectural heritage, some of whom decided to settle in the country, some of whom chose a different place, some of them foreigners visiting Lebanon and giving them a different cultural vision and footprint.

The exhibition brings together works of art that offer a photographic look at Lebanon today in an international cultural space, most of which took place in 2010, and highlights artists who gradually emerged after the 1975-1990 civil war.

The images tell of the current turmoil in Lebanese society in the current political situation and the thinking of a generation of enthusiastic young people who aspire to restore freedom for a more beautiful future.

The organizers want to contribute to providing a fair and honest view of contemporary Lebanese art by moving away from the image of Lebanon usually associated with the civil war, especially after the increased interest shown by visitors of the exhibition in 2015 and 2017 and the positive reception devoted by the French and international press to this event.

Lebanon: Reality and Memory
The first part of the exhibition "Facts" relates to the geographical and social reality of Lebanon, and focuses on the concept of memory and history, as well as stories about exile and asylum in black and white images.

In her collection "Another Stranger, 2017," Brian Varun, born in Beirut in 1974 and beginning her career as a photographer, explores the beauty of light and shadow in her photographic style.

In the short documentary "Downtown Beirut, 1991", Tanino Musso depicts his post-war visit to the Lebanese capital.

The work of Dalia Khamissi, "The Disappeared of Lebanon," focuses on the social and political history of the Middle East and the aftermath of the Lebanon war, such as the image of Umm Ahmad, a woman who died without knowing the fate of her son, who has been forcibly disappeared since 1986.

In his portraits, Syrian photographer Omar Imam uses the conceptual approach to the violent situation in Syria, asking refugees in Lebanon to build their dreams and nightmares of escape, terror and love in black and white acts that bear all these contradictory and largely realistic meanings.

In the "Shocking Facts" series, Lamia Maria Abelama focuses on photographs of Lebanese women in military uniform as a symbol of violence that has devastated their lives.

In the Lebanese notebook, 2011, Demetris Kuilalos reveals Lebanon's war-torn face that has made him live internal divisions, while the works of Tania Traboulsi, who spent her childhood between Austria and Lebanon, illustrate her intimate relationship with her country, which symbolizes the concept of belonging, identity and memory.

Eva Sudarghati Douaihy is characterized by her visual collection “The Last City” which relies on visual art by depicting different places in Beirut with vertical geometric lines and precise cracks in walls and buildings, as if she were trying to embody the political, temporal and spatial boundaries of the country.

Miriam Boulos expresses her self-search on the nights of Beirut to reveal the contradictions of this explosive society, and wonders about the situation of young women in the industrial districts of Beirut, which has become a stage for festivals and night parties, bold black and white images that encourage wondering, dreaming and seeking the truth.

Lebanon .. Dream and imagination
In the second section of the exhibition we see stark images expressing the desire to escape the limitations of reality through which artists attract us to other worlds of dream and invention, and their work expresses imagination through the development of forms, such as image compositions or digital collage.

Visual artist Lara Tabet takes us to the underworld in the dark neighborhoods of Beirut, to uncover the circumstances of a fictional murder story that combines individual space with public space, criticizing the issue of identity and gender.

Caroline Tabet's images explore the relationship between the urban landscape and human paths, as well as the concepts of memory and loss.In a dark film development room, she works on these images as faded memories and stories preserved by fuzzy and mysterious memories sculpted by time before freezing in a colorless image.

Maria Kassab adopts a surreal contemporary identity and presents a new vision of a more flexible and tolerant humanity through social symbols and images, and in photographic editing that illustrates the phenomenon of international separation and the reduction of living space and the displacement of refugees fleeing the conflict, whose destination remains unclear.

Finally, all these photographs relate to the Arab memory and the geographical, social and historical reality of Lebanon, and it tells the mix of societies and the displacement of the population in the region through visual metaphors that left their owners more room to express what is currently happening in one way or another.