Lebanese arts organizations scramble as Israel steps up airstrikes

Israeli strikes have killed nearly 700 people in Lebanon since Monday, according to the country’s Health Ministry. With a potential ground invasion looming on the horizon, strikes on Beirut and the country’s southern and eastern regions have forced residents to evacuate or retreat.

And across the region, cultural institutions and arts organizations are closing their doors to the public, not knowing what the next day – or time – will hold.

“In a country already struggling with a severe economic crisis, Israel’s war against Lebanon threatens our dreams of restoring the arts and culture sector after the explosion,” said Karina El Helou, director of Beirut’s Sursock Museum. Hyperallergic. “Our most sincere prayers go out to the victims of this ongoing bloodbath in the region. »

The Sursock Museum is temporarily closed to the public this week for security reasons. He dismantled the loaned works and the year Intimate garden scene (in Beirut) group exhibition in advance; curated by Christiane Tohmé, founder of the Lebanese artistic group Ashkal Alwan, the exhibition was to run until November 15.

The museum reopened to the public last May after undergoing extensive repairs that repaired damage caused by the port explosion that killed 218 people and displaced more than 300,000 residents in August 2020. Caused by hundreds tons of ammonium nitrate stored haphazardly, the deadly explosion decimated most of the museum. Beirut’s port district, which encompasses many of the capital’s galleries, museums and art centers.

For many Lebanese, the strikes and pager attacks are part of what appears to be an endless cycle of violence and instability since the end of the country’s 15-year civil war, which killed an estimated 150,000 Lebanese citizens and left hundreds of thousands more. moved. In the decades that followed, the country’s residents witnessed rotating governments, escalations between Israeli and Hezbollah forces, growing tensions between different religious groups, and peaceful protests met with violent government repression.

Political instability and social unrest are compounded by the country’s crippling economic situation in recent years, partly due to a massive reduction in foreign tourism. Especially since October 7, travel advisories from countries including the United States, France, Italy and the United Kingdom have increasingly deterred visitors amid ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza and the Occupied West Bank.

Visual artist Stéphanie Saadé, who participated in the Sursock museum exhibition alongside more than 60 artists, described the country’s ability to adapt to near-constant violence as “resilience and resignation.”

“You get used to constantly hearing the sound of explosions. You’re not supposed to get used to this stuff, but you continue to function regardless,” Saadé said. Hyperallergic on the phone from Paris, where she moved following the port explosion of 2020. It took her two years to return home because the incident was so traumatic.

“The fact is that I realized, and many other Lebanese also shared this with me, that we are not yet healed from the explosion. We are not yet healed from our childhood,” Saadé said. “So it rekindles all those wounds that haven’t healed.”

“You can end up as collateral damage, even if you are not the target,” Saadé added.

Joumana Asseily, director of the Beirut gallery Marfa’ Projects, said Hyperallergic“Hour by hour, day by day, we manage.” Located in the port district, Marfa’ Projects is one of several galleries to suffer significant damage following the 2020 explosion, alongside Tanit Gallery, Sfeir Semler Gallery and Saleh Barakat Gallery.

Asseily said the gallery closed its doors on Saturday, September 21, and was operating by appointment while his small team prepared for upcoming art fairs in London and Paris.

“We have to continue to work. You don’t know what tomorrow will be,” Asseily said. “Our work is very important, continuing to highlight the work of our artists is very important. Continuing to do what we do is very important.

In Saida, the country’s third city located less than 50 km south of Beirut, the Soap Museum has also closed its doors. A heritage institution based in a soap workshop and a 17th century family residence, it is also facing attendance problems in a context of decline in tourism in the country. Over the past year and a half, not a single tourist has come to visit it, said museum director Christine Audi. Hyperallergic. Currently, the only staff on site are security personnel, as the travel of many employees living in neighboring villages is too precarious.

“There are two priorities: first, that people are safe, and second, that they keep their jobs,” Audi said.

“We keep having the same conversation decade after decade, and it’s not moving forward,” said artist Reem Bassous, born in Beirut and also of Palestinian origin. Hyperallergic. Bassous currently lives with her family in Washington, DC, where she works as artistic director of the Washington Studio School.

“I always tell my daughter that survival is the best form of resistance,” Bassous said, adding that she feels “luckier than a lot of people” in the sense that she can channel her feelings into her work.

Yet she has found the past year of Israeli attacks on Gaza difficult to confront directly through her art because it is “too close” to the violence she grew up adapting to.

“People ask me, ‘Why don’t you paint?’ What is happening in Gaza?’ “, Bassous said. “We’ve had enough bodies posted on social media…I don’t want to paint another dead Palestinian body. I don’t want to paint another demolished building. It’s not something that interests me at all.