Art exhibit in Lebanon takes on civil war’s old wounds
BEIRUT — Zena El Khalil’s art exhibit has tapped into wounds that are more than 40 years old in war-scarred Lebanon.
“Sacred Catastrophe: Healing Lebanon” is being hosted in a landmark building in the centre of Beirut that is a powerful reminder of the country’s 1975-1990 civil war. Pockmarked and riddled with bullet holes, the building stands on the former demarcation line that bisected Beirut into warring sections: east and west, Muslim and Christian.
The nearly 100-year-old house became a favourite for snipers, who turned the structure into a killing machine during the war. El Khalil has brought her work to what is now the Beit Beirut museum — a collection of paintings, photographs, videos, installations and recorded poetry produced from over 100 locations around Lebanon. The exhibit is the first in Beit Beirut, which was declared a cultural centre in 2003 when the city bought it.
Spaces, like humans, need healing, El Khalil said. And in Beit Beirut, she has planted a seed for a dialogue over reconciliation.