"The images for the most parts are traces of passages through various locations places and countries that I have lived in. The photographs were never intended as public documents. It is the subjective and the personal that I have emphasized, shamelessly, the personal and private space or encounter that I have stressed. It is in the diffusion and the display of the work that I hoped to transform the personal into a part of the collective memory."
Articles - Essays & Research - Books excerpts - Stories
Ayssar Arida
Architect & Urban Designer
Quantum City Book Excerpts
"Quantum City proposes a description of quantum theory and the concepts of the 'new' physics of the 20th century, in a concise, non-technical language that is enjoyable to read and easy to understand for lay-people."
"From this, it develops a conceptual language that can then be applied to different disciplines, in particular to urban design, where it is clear that the new vision can provide powerful insights into the growth and self-organisation of cities at different scales. The new language thus permits a higher degree of integration between the different disciplines of the city, and promises to be a useful metaphor for the development of various theories for the 21st century city."
MonoPolyPolis: Banknotes & Beirut Article
"This presentation [First presented at "My Rights to My City" Workshop, Alexendria, Egypt, Nov. 2000] will address the issue of identity, national, cultural or otherwise, through the eerie parallel between the gradual destruction of the country's physical form and the gradual abstraction of the National Currency's design."
Ayssar Arida & Michael Stanton
Architects
Therapeutic Urbanism? Article
Starting with the statement that "cities are the most significant repositories of identity", this article is about the therapeutic role of urbanism -"often misused, the decision makers often opting for the easy erasure of the traces of conflict, while designers often opt for a fetishization of the same traces" relatively to post-war city reconstruction and the notion of memory "which should not be eradicated because this would induce a form of civic amnesia". According to the authors, "therapeutic urbanism may heal on the level of the individual, of the citizen/user, and on that of the urban fabric."
Rawi Hage
Writer & Visual Artist
The Jinni's Women Story
[..."I went to the bathroom; I saw the ax leaning at the door on the outside porch. I went straight to it and came back with it in my hand. I faced the brute; he smiled, and said to me, So you found it eh. We both laughed and I killed him. I went upstairs. She had her baggage ready. I drove his truck, she sang all the way to Cliff Crete town. I finished the book, it was a success. At the end a bomb fell and everyone died except me and the neighbor’s girl"...]
The Little Boy and His Friend the Young Fighter Story
[..."When the little boy and his friend the young fighter arrived at the war zone, the young fighter stopped the car, pulled a beautiful new gun with a silver colour and holds it in his hand. It is a shinny gun and can make many empty shell the little boy shouts with joy and smiles to himself"...]
The Signora Story
[..."A heroic death, yes a lovely explosive death. War finally came and offered her that prospect. Combat and war, she was surrounded by its smell, a smell of powder, of screaming cadavers, of lightning, [...] All of it made her secretly cheer like a spectator in the bloodiest arena of all. Gore! Now it was the human turn to be butchered, stabbed underneath brilliant red cloth that is held, waved, and danced by strong, graceful arms"...]
Karim Lebnan
Researcher
Itinéraires identitaires chez des immigrants libanais de Montréal : le cas de l’identité confessionnelle Thesis Thesis for the Master of Studies; Université de Montréal, July 2003.
"This master’s thesis examines the importance of denominational identity among Lebanese immigrants in Montreal. This topic is motivated by three reasons:
1) the longstanding Lebanese debate on the definition of Lebanese identity;
2) the fact that many researchers argue that Lebanese identity, even in a migratory context, is still structured around denominational affiliation;
3) the need to broaden the scope of French Canadian historiography by focussing on migratory and ethnic phenomena.
This research takes as a point of departure the working hypothesis that, in a more secularised environment, the Lebanese immigrants of Montreal can be expected to build a more secular identity. This hypothesis is verified by employing oral history tools. Eleven Lebanese immigrants of Montreal of various denominational affiliations were interviewed in order to understand how they define their identity.
their thoughts, while providing information about them and their behaviour, especially as the latter relate to their denominational affiliation. The transcription of these eleven interviews constitutes the corpus analysis."
Chadi Romanos
Editor
Beyrouth : reconstruire la ville, reconstruire la vie Thesis Thesis published in June 1996 by the Political Science Institute of Bordeaux (France) as a two years research work for a bachelor degree.
"A testimony of what Beirut used to be, as the basis for an analysis of what it could become... Solidere was just born then, and the economic crisis was not even underlying. Yet, it seemed to me that the roots of upcoming troubles were obvious. And 7 years later, the Lebanese have not even begun to rebuild their common space of living. The no mans land - the former "green line" - remains so today, be it sweeter, cleaner, richer. Instead of a melting pot, the city center is nothing but a border between many worlds. The essence of a battlefield, in other words." His thesis offers an analysis of the following points: The Urban Inequalities in 1975; the Disappearance of the Center and the New Forms of Urbanization; The announced Renaissance of the Lebanese Capital; Beirut: the object of Debate.
ALCHEMY Project
Charles Baroud
Scientist
Turbulence Imageries for the Alchemy Project
"Turbulent flows are omnipresent in nature, for example in the flow of water in the Seine or the flow of air above a Sannine. These images are taken from a laboratory experiment that studies the effect of rotation on the complicated motion of fluids. For instance, we would like to understand the effect of the earth's rotation on the motion of the atmosphere or the ocean."
References
A number of new book titles have been added in the books column, mainly titles, by Lebanese authors, of novels written in Arabic, English and French -originally or translated-. Most of these titles are those of books published in 2003, even though a number of other titles were added among the novels as well as the essays, that were published earlier.
Hoping these newly listed titles will bring more information about Lebanese authors as well as on Lebanon, this section, as all others, is open to suggestions concerning references anyone knows about and considers relevant and interesting for the project. >> References
