Recording post-war Beirut: Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige.

By Jesse Anderson

Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, born and raised in Beirut in 1969, began making art in the 1990’s following the conclusion of the civil war in Lebanon. Out of a sense of necessity to record the experience of living in post-war Beirut, Hadjithomas and Joreige made art which created cultural documents for Beirutis to relate to in a period of collective political amnesia which followed the war.  Based between Paris and Beirut, the artists’ work consistently looks to Beirut to process and document the changing cityscape and communicate the complex identity of the city and its civilians. Circle of Confusion (fig. 1, 1997) and The Story of a Pyromaniac Photographer (fig. 4, 1997-2006) are works which process and communicate the civil war whilst asking audiences to question the legitimacy of a given history and encourages viewers to actively remember despite periods of collective political amnesia.

Figure 1: Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Circle of Confusion, 1997, installation with camera, 3000 digital prints stamped, numbered and glued on a mirror, 4x3m.

The Lebanese civil war lasted fifteen years from 1975-1990, concluding with the signing of the Ta’if Accord. Exhaustion, rather than political resolution, brought the end of the war, meaning that little changed in the Lebanese political system which had previously accommodated warlords. Many Lebanese felt that the war was indeed not over, and they were living in its aftermath without any consolidation for collective trauma suffered. The city underwent a huge reconstruction effort following the civil war which made the once familiar space of Beirut completely unfamiliar. Homes were destroyed, roads were rebuilt, and affected communities were denied social reparations. The curriculum concluded Lebanese history in 1946, the government granted amnesty to those who had committed war crimes during the civil war. There was a general feeling on the pedestrian and governmental level that people wanted to turn a new page. Thus, a period of collective amnesia befell Lebanon. Hadjithomas and Joreige are wary of looking at Beirut through a nostalgic lens which attempts to forge a path to the future with the memory of pre-war Beirut. They believe in the importance of remembering the war and its impact, rather than seeking comfort in nostalgia. Their art, therefore, attempts to bring the war and its aftermath to the forefront: communicating its effects on Beirutis and questioning the future of Beirut.

Figure 2: Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Circle of Confusion [on display], 1997, installation with camera, 3000 digital prints stamped, numbered and glued on a mirror, 4x3m.

Circle of Confusion (fig. 2, 1997) consists of a large aerial photograph of Beirut fragmented into 3000 pieces, individually adhered to a mirror. Visitors are encouraged to choose a fragment and take it with them, uncovering a section of mirror which reflects the surroundings, and importantly, the participant’s own image (fig. 3). This interactivity endows agency to the viewer, rendering them as both a visual component of the artwork and an active participant in its evolution. Each piece is numbered, with the sentence “Beirut does not exist” on the reverse side, in reference to a wider discourse on the question of the ‘existence’ of Beirut, and Lebanon, in grappling with a national identity within a country that has been victim to occupations, military interventions, and collective amnesia in response to political trauma. Circles of Confusion visualises the everchanging cityscape of Beirut, whilst emphasising the importance of people to the existence of Beirut. Beirut’s existence is not definitionally dependent on geographical stasis; but rather, on its people. In rhetorical response to this social debate, the artwork expresses the impossibility of defining a city like Beirut “which is in perpetual mutation and movement,” implicitly begging the question of where and how a city can be defined. Hadjithomas and Joreige, in making their work participatory, by encouraging people to take pieces of Beirut home, impress our role in remembering and preserving Beirut, a city defined by people.

Figure 3: Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Circle of Confusion [close-up, interaction], 1997, 3000 digital prints stamped, numbered and glued on a mirror, 4x3m.

Circle of Confusion’s exploration of the changing nature of the city and the task of preserving its history can be seen as an indirect response to the events of the civil war, the aftermath of which drastically changed the cityscape of Beirut. Whereas the war is a more explicit theme in The Story of a Pyromaniac Photographer (fig. 4, 1997-2006) which forms a part of the larger Wonder Beirut Project. This artwork is an amalgamation of historical fact and metaphorical fiction. Based on the photographs of a fictitious Lebanese photographer named Abdallah Farah, whose collection of images show a nostalgic pre-war Beirut, Hadjithomas and Joreige’s creative invention tracks Abdallah Farah’s alteration of these images in 1975, at the outbreak of the civil war.  Abdallah Farah began burning individual images from his collection according to the real destruction of buildings and spaces during the war. Hence, the manipulation of these images provides an alternative history of the war and raises the question of who is responsible for documenting history and whether we should trust the history given to us.

The photographs are either altered in a “historic” or “plastic” process to differing effect. The historical process follows truthfully the events of the war: “Farah systematically burned the negatives of the postcards in accordance with the damages caused to the sites by the shelling and street fights.” The photographs, which depicted postcard-locations of Beirut, were altered to reflect how those spaces had changed during the war. As Abdallah Farah burned the images of locations which had been destroyed in a historical documentation of the changing cityscape, a photograph was taken after every burn, illustrating a process of destruction and offering an alternative historiographic perspective of the civil war. Herein, the historical process of creation used in The Story of a Pyromaniac Photographer speaks to the necessity of documenting history from multiple and alternative perspectives – particularly, when those who hold the responsibility to do so fail or mislead us. The visceral realness of physically burning images of Beirut reflects the violence of the war which Hadjithomas and Joreige wished to communicate to those outside of the Arab world, where Wonder Beirut might be exhibited.

Figure 4: Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, The Story of a Pyromaniac Photographer, part I of Wonder Beirut project, 1997-2006, Photographic prints on aluminium with face mounting.

The plastic process, conversely, consists of images which were “wilfully or accidentally” burned by Farah. These images counterbalance the historical process by demonstrating the malleability of history in the hands of its documenters. Hadjithomas and Joreige thus ask the viewer to reconsider and question the information and history which they are given by those in positions of authority. Hadjithomas and Joreige’s interest in the blending of fiction and history, evident in many of their works, fittingly enables them to create their own cultural documents through their artistic production – all the while exposing the way in which history can be manipulated.

The Story of a Pyromaniac Photographer was exhibited as part of the Wonder Beirut Project, accompanied by additional works which continued to use the fictitious character of Abdallah Farah and displayed objects such as burned postcards and boxes of undeveloped film. The increasingly charred photographs of iconic Beirut landscapes were exhibited chronologically so as to offer a visual history of the changing cityscape.

Figure 5: Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, The Story of a Pyromaniac Photographer [serial display], part I of Wonder Beirut project, 1997-2006, Photographic prints on aluminium with face mounting.

In gallery spaces, these artworks look to create a space for collective memory. They remain localised to Beirut whilst communicating with those beyond Lebanon, both temporally and spatially, the impact of the war. Hadjithomas and Joreige exemplify the importance of art as an alternative language for documentation and communication of cultural events at risk of being forgotten. Circumventing traditional modes of historical communication, the messages which these artworks communicate raised, and continue to raise, awareness of the lasting impact of the civil war. As Beirut’s temporal distance from the civil war increases, the importance of seeking community through art remains pertinent, and these artworks unfortunately remain equally poignant to today’s socio-political landscape.

The cityscape of Beirut is changing once more as it falls victim to another period of violence. It is therefore especially important to look to alternative modes of documentation, and actively broaden our understanding of the experiences of those (geographically) distanced from us in this present age of misinformation. Art plays an invaluable role in documentation and communication in the face of adversity; Hadjithomas and Joreige boldly continued to focus their art on a period which risked being forgotten in the folds of cultural trauma, and thus provide us today with a documentation of lived experience in a post-war Beirut – the shape of which had been made unfamiliar even to those who live there. Their alternative artistic language depends on the receptivity of the viewer, their audience, upon whom the onus of remembering is placed. Beirut’s existence depends on people: we must create spaces for collective memory, for communication, and documentation in order to preserve the history of the city.

Bibliography:

Art Basel. “Conversations | Salon | Artist Talk | Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige.” Moderated by Princess Alia Al-Senussi. Youtube. Posted June 18, 2013. Accessed October 10, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qTzoFBG0Io

Guggenheim Museum. “Artist Profile: Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige on “Latent Images.””Youtube. Posted October 27, 2017. Accessed October 11, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-dtL5X-gCc

Joana&Khalil. “Circle of Confusion, 1997”. About. Accessed October 19,2024. http://hadjithomasjoreige.com/circle-of-confusion/

Joana&Khalil. “The Story of a Pyromaniac Photographer, 1997-2006”. About. Accessed October 15, 2024. http://hadjithomasjoreige.com/the-novel-of-a-pyromaniac-photographer/

Nagel, Caroline. “Reconstructing space, re-creating memory: Sectarian Politics and Urban Development in post-war Beirut.” Political Geography 21 no.5 (2002): 171-725

Pontbriant, Chantal. “Artists at Work: Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige.” Afterall. Accessed October 11, 2024. https://www.afterall.org/articles/artists-at-work-joana-hadjithomas-and-khalil-joreige/

Rogers, Sarah. “Out of History: Postwar Art in Beirut.” Art Journal 66, no.2 (2007): 8-20.