My archive of the Lebanese civil war (1975 – 1990)
Some photographs of my lemon:
The concept behind my idea:
Since lemons remind me of the Lebanese civil war, I decided to do a series of photographs of me holding a lemon. It would be a symbol of what I hold of the Lebanese civil war, a war I’ve never lived in and a war that I do not know about, and that I will never understand since also, is being ignored and disregarded from everyone. The only thing that marks me is this story is my grandmother’s lemon tree and it is the only thing that I know of this war, one of the very few stories I’ve heard. Therefore, by taking pictures of lemons, I capture my personal “archive” of this national trauma.
The lemon doesn’t only represent my grandmother’s lemon tree, but also, Beirut itself. In fact, some pictures are of a perfect round lemon (what Beirut was once), and others, are of this lemon being destroyed and demolished (what happened during the war).
I believe that holding a lemon in my hand has much more than one meaning, not only personally but also in general. In fact, the lemon has connoted significances that are genuinely very powerful and meaningful as a response to a war.
By destroying a lemon with my hands, I also express my frustration, my anger and my personal response in wanting to know more about this violent civil conflict that my family experienced but somehow cannot talk about.
My aim is to portray my personal vision of this war through lemons. The photographs above are some experiments of how my final project would look. I am still debating whether I should take at least 200 photographs and print them on A5 or even smaller paper and put them all over a white wall, as shown in my experiment here:
Or maybe just print two perfect photographs on a large scale that could express my intentions and ideas more simply, as shown in this prototype:
Questions I asked myself:
-How do I want people to understand my idea?
-Should I maybe get a vintage camera to create this faded effect naturally and without having to use photoshop?
-On what kind of paper do I want to print my photographs? Matte or shiny? Old or modern?
-Should I only print two big and very strong photographs or do a whole wall of little ones?
-Should I maybe also take pictures of rotten, molded lemons too to communicate and express the contrast and relationship between this old and unperfect wall with this old lemon, as shown in my first prototype:
Feedbacks from the class:
- Strong photos even though very simple and minimalistic.
- Should I maybe ask someone else to take photographs of me holding the lemon with my two hands?
- Maybe create a lemon tree with all the photographs of me holding the lemon?
- I could make it an experience for the viewer by also adding the scent of lemons in the room where I will present my work, and therefore this will also be a response to me wanting to first work with the five senses.
- Add words, whether by adding a title, a text, a poem next to my work, or even an audio tape etc.
- Pay attention to what I want people to experience since the grid gives a feeling of a movie scene.
- If I really want to do the idea of the floating lemon tree (a previous idea that turned out to be quite impossible to do), I could take a photograph of a suspended tree rather than present it as an installation.
- The angle of my pictures, the colors, and the ambiance I want to project is very important.
Next steps:
In my opinion, art is art if firstly it is well presented and beautifully crafted. This is the main reason why I decided to take photographs and abandon my initial idea of doing a “floating lemon tree” since it first didn’t respond to my aim and concept as strongly as the lemons in my hand, but most importantly because I couldn’t fall on anything physically pleasing after experiments.
With the photographs, I realized that my concept and approach is being communicated more powerfully and beautifully too. After doing this first draft, I realized that I want my pictures to look faded and vintage, as real archives, and therefore, for my final project, I will be using a vintage camera of the early 1980s to maybe be the closest to the timezone of this war and to resemble archives as honestly as possible, as if the photographs were taken in this period of time.
Also, I was debating on what kind of paper I would like to print the pictures on, and I finally think that I will be using matte paper since it matches perfectly my purpose and gives these nostalgia feelings to the viewer.
I am passionate by this project and really hope that it will end up being as successful as I think it will.
