|
|
|
>>
PICTURES
>>
EXHIBITION
VIEWS
|
#abandoneddwellingsbeirut
[version
française]
|
|
Abandoned
Dwellings.
Tableaux
solo
exhibitions
-
Abandoned Dwellings
of Beirut, Villa
Empain, Brussels,
2019 >> website
-
Abandoned Dwellings,
Display of Systems.
Curated by Karina
el-Helou, Sursock
Museum, Beirut, 2018.
>> website
selected
group exhibitions
- Beirut. The Eras of Design, curated by Marco
Costantini.
mudac Musée
cantonal de
design et
d’arts
appliqués
contemporains,
Lausanne 2023
>> website
-
All Falls
Down:
Architectural
Heritage
Effaced,
curated by
Saad Ghosn.
Fotofocus
Biennial,
World Record.
Cincinnati,
2022 >> website
- Stone Garden: Resilient Living, An Archaeology of the
Future. Lina
Ghotmeh
Architecture.
17th
International
Architecture
Exhibition -
La Biennale di
Venezia, 2021 >>
website
|
In
2009, Gregory Buchakjian
decided to symbolically
inhabit abandoned
houses. This gesture
consisted of recovering
buildings whose
inhabitants had been
expelled either by wars
or by real estate
speculation. It is also
a re- enactment of a
sequence from Hamasat
– Whispers , a
documentary produced by
Maroun Bagdadi in 1980
and chronicling the
lives and the
testimonies of the
inhabitants of a country
torn between war and
hope. The film opens
with the poetess Nadia
Tuéni who, accompanied
by a photographer,
surveys the ruins of the
city, moving towards the
shore, and pronounces a
litany:
"Beirut has
become ruins.
With time, ruins
become beautiful.
But I will not get
accustomed to it.
Beirut was ugly,
maybe.
But she was my city.
She was bad, maybe.
But she was my city."
From 2009 to 2018,
forty people took part
in the game despite the
risks involved:
unwelcome encounters,
accidents, bugs, dirt.
This performative
practice echoes the
principle stated by
researcher Rebecca
Schneider: performance
can be engaged as what
remains, rather than
what disappears.
Although condemned to
extinction, the body can
be approached in this
perspective as "an
archive and hosting a
collective memory".
|
related
publication
-
Abandoned Dwellings.
A History of Beirut
related texts
- The
lives and deaths
of inhabitants in
abandoned houses,
2017
- Exhume
ghosts from one's
artwork (in
French), 2018
- Abandoned Dwellings in Beirut. Wars and
Transformation
of the Urban
Space.
1860-2015 (in
French), 2016
selected
reviews and
interviews
- Kirsten O'Regan, Hyperallergic, 06'12'2018
- Tim Cornwell, Middle East Eye, 10'12'2019
- Sam Brennan, Al-Monitor, 03'12'2018
- India Stoughton, The National, 19'11'2018
- Iain Akerman, Arab News, 10'01'2020
abandoned
dwellings
bodies of work
- Abandoned Dwellings. Inventory
- Abandoned Dwellings. Archive
- Abandoned Dwellings. Typologies
-
Abandoned Dwellings. Inside/Outside
-
Abandoned Dwellings. Facts
-
Abandoned Dwellings. Restitution
- Agenda 1979
- Chez Takieddine el-Solh
prequel
projects
- Sniper Pinhole, 2017
-
Kolmanskop, 2013
- Leningrad, 2013
|
|
|
©gregory buchakjian.
all rights reserved. Photo by Christopher
Baaklini, courtesy Sursock Museum
|
