This project is
a series of 32 photographs,
16 are shown in these pages

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C-type print
size 1mx1m

 

 

 

Beirut 99, real visions
Beyrouth 99, visions réelles


The city leaves its mark on people's memory by giving them a certain "image" to more or less important or even intimate moments of their life. As important can become some day the human power over the identity of a city.
For those who live in or near a given city, the place gains a certain "personnality" and even a certain "soul".
In extreme circumstances like war or at the time of large scale building projects, men play with the image of the city, contribute in the modification of its "personnality" and even in the reincarnation of its "soul".
That has become the case of Beirut at the end of the 20th century when the central district, after being the prey of multiple whims of human violence, becomes the world's largest construction site.
Thus, it is the finest representation of two extreme examples of man's power over the city, because these two extremes are juxtaposed there today.
The outcome is a vision that borders on the absurd, at the limits of the imaginable, but real.
Absurd fruit of fate...
The face of man is excluded from these images because they only represent the ambiguity of his immense power.
These are the remains of a disastrous war, those of a total chaos still lingering in a reorganized environment which is aiming to "tame" them.

Beirut, may 1999

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