Marking the one-year anniversary of the devastating Beirut blast, this program of films and videos from Lebanese artists and filmmakers conveys their direct experience assimilating the overwhelming experience of loss and trauma. Two of the works are a response to the Beirut blast, which shook the city on August 4, 2020, while the other two were created as a response to the 2006 Lebanon war with Israel. From the political and performative to the poetic, these subjective works emerged from the rubble of a collapsed present.
Featuring works by Charbel Samuel Aoun, Ali Cherri, Carol Mansour, Wael Noureddine
Warning
Some of the films in this program contain graphic and violent content that may be distressing to some viewers.
Viewer discretion is advised.
"The Heap" synopsis: After the Beirut Blast a new body emerged in the city, rubble. A mixture of destructed materials in the social space blocked streets and sidewalks and gave form to the remaining social effect of the catastrophe. "The Heap" is an act of a breath seeking the value of decomposition, questioning the destruction as a way for a new existence; being as space instead of being in space.
An act, a tool, a plant ( Aloe Arborescens which is known for its healing properties on wounds), offering a path and a medicinal space through the remains of destruction.
Bio:
Born in 1980, Charbel Samuel Aoun is a multi-disciplinary artist, and holds a master’s degree in architecture (2004). During the following five years he worked as a conceptual designer in several architectural firms in Beirut and explored the fields of audiovisual and theatre. At the same time, he started creating a wild garden, combining hundreds of varieties of plants and trees. In his work he combines his education as an architect and his passion for nature, experimenting with different materials and elements. He thereby creates a system that both examines and questions social and environmental realities.
Since 2017, he is involved in academic teaching. He has been developing a master's program in architecture studying the dynamics of social structures in critical areas and seeking the possible role of design as a democratic social operator facing political and urban strategies shaping the city.
“My work explores through social and environmental elements, a dialogue between the magnitude of the disaster and the poetic dimension of “leftovers”. The Human, the urban and the environment evokes boundaries we exceed and borders we create.”
- Year2021
- Runtime5 minutes
- CountryLebanon
- DirectorCharbel Samuel Aoun
- CinematographerYara Nammour
Marking the one-year anniversary of the devastating Beirut blast, this program of films and videos from Lebanese artists and filmmakers conveys their direct experience assimilating the overwhelming experience of loss and trauma. Two of the works are a response to the Beirut blast, which shook the city on August 4, 2020, while the other two were created as a response to the 2006 Lebanon war with Israel. From the political and performative to the poetic, these subjective works emerged from the rubble of a collapsed present.
Featuring works by Charbel Samuel Aoun, Ali Cherri, Carol Mansour, Wael Noureddine
Warning
Some of the films in this program contain graphic and violent content that may be distressing to some viewers.
Viewer discretion is advised.
"The Heap" synopsis: After the Beirut Blast a new body emerged in the city, rubble. A mixture of destructed materials in the social space blocked streets and sidewalks and gave form to the remaining social effect of the catastrophe. "The Heap" is an act of a breath seeking the value of decomposition, questioning the destruction as a way for a new existence; being as space instead of being in space.
An act, a tool, a plant ( Aloe Arborescens which is known for its healing properties on wounds), offering a path and a medicinal space through the remains of destruction.
Bio:
Born in 1980, Charbel Samuel Aoun is a multi-disciplinary artist, and holds a master’s degree in architecture (2004). During the following five years he worked as a conceptual designer in several architectural firms in Beirut and explored the fields of audiovisual and theatre. At the same time, he started creating a wild garden, combining hundreds of varieties of plants and trees. In his work he combines his education as an architect and his passion for nature, experimenting with different materials and elements. He thereby creates a system that both examines and questions social and environmental realities.
Since 2017, he is involved in academic teaching. He has been developing a master's program in architecture studying the dynamics of social structures in critical areas and seeking the possible role of design as a democratic social operator facing political and urban strategies shaping the city.
“My work explores through social and environmental elements, a dialogue between the magnitude of the disaster and the poetic dimension of “leftovers”. The Human, the urban and the environment evokes boundaries we exceed and borders we create.”
- Year2021
- Runtime5 minutes
- CountryLebanon
- DirectorCharbel Samuel Aoun
- CinematographerYara Nammour