ABSTRACT
Within a context of continuous conflicts and unrest since the 1990s, Lebanon has witnessed the rise of artistic practices addressing history and memory through the extensive use of images: archive collections, blurred boundaries between real and imaginary narratives, visible and absent documents, altered and ruined photographic objects. Discussing a wide array of examples including the author's own work, this chapter reevaluates a history of image-related productions through a chronology of four decades. It confronts series that are now part of the contemporary canon such as Walid Raad's Atlas Group, Akram Zaatari's venture with Hashem El Madani and Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige's Wonder Beirut, with new unorthodox experiments like Lara Tabet's microorganisms cultivated on negatives, Nasri Sayegh's scissor cuts and İeva Saudargaitė Douaihi's social media posts. Taking the point of view of an artist, an art historian and a friend of most of the cited persons, the author establishes unexpected connections and travels into temporalities: How can manipulations, discoveries and the set-up of images be exercises to apprehend the past, cope with the present and even premonitions of the future?
