Category Archives: Blog

Mansion (Beirut)
Monday, September 29th
8 pm

My mandatory military service was done. I was then held in the army reserve with the revolution in my country. I was stuck for a whole year, waiting for my discharge, with no hope in sight. My military rank was sergeant. I was assigned to run Bassel AL Assad theatre that hasn’t screened a film in 15 years. I go back to my house in the middle of Damascus, take off my military suit to return to my city and to my normal life. I work with my friend Mohammed Malas on his feature film as an assistant director. I hold my small camera and try to document our daily activities where all the technicians, mainly from the opposition, tell me their stories. Some of them had their houses shelled, some of them emigrated and don’t know where they are going next and some of them had their friends killed and their families displaced. I go back home, I sit and watch the news about destruction, violence, shelling…The sun rises anew, I wake up once more and put on my military suit, and go off to my military base to start a new day.

عند انتهاء خدمتي العسكرية تم الاحتفاظ بي عند بدء الثورة السورية. بقيت عالقاً في هذا الوضع لمدة سنة كاملة بانتظار تسريحي ولكن بدون أمل. كانت رتبتي العسكرية رقيب. تم تعييني في سينما باسل الأسد العسكرية التي لم تعرض أي فيلم لمدة ١٥ عام. أعود يومياً إلى منزلي في وسط العاصمة دمشق وأخلع الملابس العسكرية لأعود لحياتي الطبيعية. أعمل مع صديقي محمد ملص كمساعد مخرج في فيلمه الجديد. أحمل كاميرتي الصغيرة وأصور حياتنا اليومية والأنشطة التي نقوم بها حيث يخبرني التقنيون والفنيون بقصصهم. تم تدمير منازل البعض منهم وآخرين هاجروا ولا يعرفون الآن ماذا سيفعلون وآخرين فقدوا أصدقاء لهم وتهجر أهلهم. أعود إلى المنزل لأشاهد الأخبار، أخبار الدمار والعنف والقصف … تشرق الشمس من جديد و اعلن عن انشقاقي من الجيش و رفضي لحمل السلاح

Beirut: Bodies in Public
Workshop dates: October 9th – 11th
American University of Beirut (Beirut, Lebanon) & other locations in the city

Beirut: Bodies in Public is a three-day workshop inviting artists and researchers to respond to the interdisciplinary concerns surrounding performance in public space in Beirut. The workshop is free to attend, and open to all. It incorporates research presentations, discussions, performances, films and interventions in and around the city, as a means of enquiry and debate into the role of embodied practices in the city’s precarious public sites. Naked Wagon, a project led by our artist-in-residence Dima Mabsout, will be on site as a mobile hub for discussion and encounter, and to document the story of the workshop. The Naked Wagon artists will create a live, onsite response to the workshop during the three days, to be performed at the conclusion of the event.

Orientalism & New York with Barry Lewis
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Tuesday, September 30, 6:00 p.m.
Tickets start at $40

Architectural historian Barry Lewis peruses the New York area to uncover a fine collection of buildings with roots in Oriental design. In the nineteenth century, Europeans and Americans saw the Middle East as a veritable Shangri-la where they could find refreshingly different cultural ideals. This was the beginning of “Orientalism,” a century-long infatuation with everything Middle Eastern. In terms of architecture, the new vogue provided Westerners in the field with a way of freeing themselves from rigid, established formulas. Middle East–inspired designs opened up cluttered interiors and created a new “metallic style” to better suit emerging iron and glass structures. Perusing the New York area, this talk uncovers a fine collection of buildings with roots in Oriental design.

Tensions are rising in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, following the fatal shooting last night of a man from Bab al-Tabbaneh. Today in Tripoli, “militants” opened fired on three army posts…

Tri Minh’s Quartet: Sounds from Hanoi (Vietnam)
with special guest Van-Anh Vanessa Vo
Thursday, October 2nd — 8:00 PM
Asia Society
725 Park Ave. (at 70th St.)

Sophisticated, versatile and lithe, Tri Minh’s Quartet: Sounds from Hanoi blends electronica, acoustic instruments, and traditional motifs in a program of collaborative and improvised works. Sounds From Hanoi opens a window onto one of the world’s unsung contemporary music scenes.  They will be Joined by special guest Van-Anh Vanessa Vo, master of the dan tranh zither, who most recently collaborated with the Kronos Quartet.

Monday, October 6, 2014
12:00-2:00 pm
Harvard University/CMES
38 Kirkland Street
Cambridge, MA

On my way to work today, some of my young Syrian refugee friends stopped me on the street, and asked if we could take photos. Since I had a few minutes to spare, we set down their shoe-shining kits in an alley, and got to work. Whenever the kids think about how they want to compose a photograph, they begin to pay more attention to their surroundings and the environment. They get a real kick out of figuring out how to insert themselves into different landscapes and street scenes. For this photo, we talked about the emergence of an unexpected flower…

To read about the effects of climate change currently affecting Mongolia–and how herders are adjusting to the recent changes in weather–please click here…

Over the week-end, I joined up with a friend to attend the Beirut Art Fair. Our first stop was an exhibition entitled “Ruins & Archaeology.” These two chapters from Frank Perrin’s “PostCapitalism” project, which he started nearly ten years ago, focus on the “fantasy” of the facade, and illustrate how architectural symbols and imaginary landscapes help circulate wealth and power. The exhibition was shown at Station Beirut–a recently renovated wood factory in the neighborhood of Jisr El Wati…

A lot can happen in Lebanon in 48 hours. Earlier today, several people in Lebanon died when Syrian warplanes bombed rebels in Arsal. As Lebanon continues its slide into the Syrian conflict, anti-Syrian sentiments in Lebanon are on the rise. This morning in Beirut, anti-Syrian graffiti was found spray-painted in Ashrafieh by a group calling itself “The Soldiers of Christ.” Over the past few weeks, Syrian refugees around Lebanon have been shot at, harassed by patrols, and tied up and beaten. While two Lebanese Army soldiers were killed on Friday by a roadside bomb near the border with Syria, an attack on a military checkpoint controlled by Hezbollah on Saturday night reportedly resulted in casualties as well. Though Saturday’s attack was originally thought to have been caused by a suicide bomber, journalists later reported that it was caused by explosives. With roadside bombs detonating and bombs being dropped from Syrian warplanes on Lebanese soil, it’s easy for many of us in Lebanon to feel like things here are heating up…

This photo was composed by Assad, my young Syrian refugee friend who I featured in “My Boys,” my recent piece in Salon. I can’t help but suspect that his inspiration for this composition came from the trauma of seeing his uncle’s leg shot off in the Syrian war–an incident which comes up often in conversation. After Assad told me exactly how he wanted this photo shot, I dutifully picked up my camera–as he began balancing on one of the cans he usually sits on to shine shoes…

For the past year, I’ve been making art with young Syrian refugees on the streets of Beirut. “My Boys,” just published by Salon, is my new piece about our friendship and creative adventures together in Lebanon. I feel very grateful for the opportunity to share our story and their struggles. There are millions of displaced children just like them yearning for peace, and hoping for a chance to go to school…