Group exhibition “Lebanese Diaspora”
The Dome, Beirut march 2010
The main objective of the proposed event is to contribute in bringing the Lebanese Diaspora close to its land of origin through the avenue of art, this event to be but one single link of a long and solid chain of cultural events meant to create a universal Lebanese society and culture spreading across the five continents. This art exhibition aims at providing participants with an opportunity to reflect on Lebanese Diaspora in all its aspects.
Text:
For an infinite repatriation:
Due to the long history of Lebanon’s everlasting instability, and because of the insufficiency of the land for its people, the Diaspora has become a banal situation that many Lebanese go through.
It is never for the same reasons that one becomes part of the Diaspora, but it is an experience that no human can ever forget. Some go by their own will and some are forced. Some travel for career opportunities, some for studies, discovery and some do it because they have to escape.
To escape violence and flee conflict zones to look for a safer future…
My story is one of them. At the age of 19, I decided to travel to France to study at a university. I have the chance to own the French nationality since my ancestors lived and worked in the Ivory Coast when it was under French administration. My journey outside of Lebanon lasted for 5 years, during which I would come visit my family every now and then.
Summer 2006 was somehow a particularly poignant visit. I arrived on the 10th of July, two days before the Israelis declared their blitzkrieg war on Lebanon. After my ancestors and my parents’ generation, it was my generation’s turn to witness events that would push a lot of us to evacuate the country.
Through those photographs, I have tried to capture the last visions I had whilst being evacuated from Beirut in august 2006 on a French repatriation emergency boat. I chose to represent the division between the land and its people, the empty spaces created by the war and the inhabitants’ confused state of mind.
The moment you see your homeland shores become smaller and smaller until it disappears from your sight, you are so overwhelmed with feelings that the journey becomes an intense spiritual one. That moment of separation might be the first step of one’s Diaspora experience.
Photos:
Beirut Frozen Port
On our XS brancards, in our XL floating bedroom
The shore’s disappearance
