A Journey
of loss
In 2019, Hala
Younes commissioned me a setup
of Fragments of the
Ridgeline, the
photographic series I created
for The Place that remains,
the first pavilion of Lebanon at
the 2018 Venice Architecture
Biennale, for a new display at
Beit Beirut. The venue being the
former Barakat building that was
a stronghold on the demarcation
line that divided Beirut from
1975 to 1990, I decided to
emphasize on the limits of the
territory – the watershed of
Beirut River – and the
demarcations it carried during
the 19th and 20th centuries. The
first gesture was to draw the
ridgeline on the wall, the
second to stick small prints of
the photographs according to
their geographic location.
I installed the piece on 24
February 2020 and was
unsatisfied. The line was not
visible enough, the prints
were not as small as I wished
and were not correctly placed
- many were leaning - and
there was no possibility of
redoing it. The Place that
remains opened at Beit
Beirut on 5 March 2020. I
didn’t attend the preview,
didn’t share the event and
made no mention of that. A few
days later, the exhibition
closed because of covid. 19
lockdown and on 4 August 2020,
the Beirut explosions
devastated the city. Since
then, this completely
disappeared from my mind, as
if it never happened.
The Place that remains
actually remained in place for
two years. It opened back on
10 February 2022. On that
evening I visited the
exhibition for the first time
and viewed my piece as the
remnant of something. As it
lasted untouched for such a
long time, I couldn’t ignore
this unwanted child anymore.
Reading the photographs,
captions handwritten in Arabic
and drawings led me to the
conclusion that these had less
to do with geography and
history and more with my
personal path. When I
responded to the commission of
the Lebanese Pavilion in
Venice, I was accompanying a
beloved person in the process
of passing away. Besides their
relation with crises, wars and
migrations, the photographs of
debris and structures in the
lonely landscapes or the
former luxurious hotels were a
testimony of mourning.
Therefore, I changed the name
of the Beirut version of Fragments
from the Ridgeline to A
Journey of Loss.
“There is a time when death
is an event, an ad-venture,
and as such mobilizes,
interests, activates,
tetanizes. And then one day it
is no longer an event, it is
another duration, compressed,
insignificant, not narrated,
grim, without recourse: true
mourning not susceptible to
any narrative dialectic.”
Excerpt From: Roland Barthes,
Mourning Diary
Gregory
Buchakjian, 13 February 2022
|
exhibition
The Place that remains, Beit Beirut Cultural Center,
Beirut, 2020,
2022.
selected
review
- L'Orient-Le
Jour,
12'02'2022
related
project
- Fragments from the
Ridgeline,
Venice
Architecture
Biennale, 2018
publication
- The Place that Remains.
Recounting the
Unbuilt
Territory
video interview
-
Gregory
Buchakjian at
the Lebanese
Pavilion,
Venice
Architecture
Biennale
|
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