Topic: Violence, Wars and Gun usage seen through the eyes of contemporary Middle Eastern artists.
Project Description
Each sketch attached below narrates a story/ thought that built the whole concept of my final project.To bottom line, my passion for architecture, and the impact of wars on my country’s landscape is the main influence regarding this final project.My research paper based on the analysis of three Lebanese artists namely Hady Sy, Ayman Baalbaki and Hannibal Srouji studies the way in which they each process and cathersize tragedies and violence into their works.My attempt will therefore be to do the same. Witnessing an explosion at seven years old, I am taking advantage of this project to communicate and share what many citizens of my country hope to do some day: It is about giving a voice to my countries wounds by sharing a 7 year old’s story. 1 out of millions.As a seven year old, my parents gave the 2006 Lebanese war a very poetic, playful and fresh approach. They would come up with stories and what they called ‘game ritual’s every time I asked about tires burning on the streets, canceled school days, staying at the mountains on weekdays, and many many more things to be told.Therefore, what I will be doing is connecting my ‘childhood’ eye with a destroyed building I saw on a daily basis on my way to school, near my home. It is a building that made me realize that I was in danger, it is the building that made me realize that I wanted to make a change, I wanted to re-paint and design my whole country, I wanted to fix the building’s wounds.On the second sketch I wrote: ‘ If only I rode few steps further, I would not be writing this.’Which is why I am deeply touched by this destruction, and hope to make a change no matter how small.
Feedback- Peers – Personal Reflections – Next Steps
As my first draft, I was inspired by the works of Jenny Holzer and the Guerrilla Girls. I wanted to bring the project to the ‘streets’ in oder to show that the point was not just to make an assignment, yet to raise awareness in my surroundings : Taking Paris as a City, to give a voice to the wounds of Lebanon.
What I wanted to create were graphics that would be printed on white t-shirts that held pertinent quotes and statements that would grasp people’s attention on the streets; that way more people would know about the brutality that Lebanese people have faced.
I wanted to hang these tshirts, as well as have posters placed in a metro station, bus, stickers on windows etc..
However, when I showed the few sketches I had to the class, they were all interested in the pictures of the destroyed buildings I took in 2017, near where I lived.
I quickly played with the image before, but never thought a minimalistic approach would be powerful.
Therefore, I decided to make it more simple: I will use 4 images : the original one, then three pictures that are collages made with mixed media.
1-The flower represent both the freshness that my parents made me see in the war, they also represent a Childs innocent eye/ view on things.
2- The birds that represent peace are a symbol of the deep desire I had towards fixing my country that was destroyed. They represent the days I Waited for the war to end, to go back to having a normal routine, to finally feel like I was free; to grow up in a home we we were not scared anymore.
3- The bicycles represent my very own story. My own experience with war, and the trauma that my parents healed so well, and carefully by making me believe in beautiful stories that had to do with the war.
Thus, the whole work relates to what I have been studying in my paper: How middle eastern artists cathersize their own experience with war into their works.
Attached below are sketches I have made to document my process of thinking.
