Beach Resorts of Northern Lebanon (2008-ongoing) Project Series
The images, illustrations, documentation, reenactments and research focus on my personal narratives and the public histories of the resorts, along with architectural photos that give insight into the stage at which the narratives intertwined.
One project that revisited these histories was a photograph series where I reenacted those narrative moments by putting my body back into the architectural surrounds of the resort. In another, I displace objects from a resort, documenting them outside of their context. In a film, I fictionalize memories of my teenage love story. In a publication, I select parts of my research and arrange them with commissioned texts. Using sound as a platform, I mix historical facts with personal memories of mine and others, in an untraditional audio guide.
The chlorine wafts up my nose like a perfume as I jump into the shock of cold water. Wearing a bikini all summer, my body feels free in it. Escaping the chalet, I inhale the scent of freshly cut grass. These are the moments I relive again and again, the memories of my childhood summers.
The 1960s vacation destinations for middle class Lebanese expanded north of Beirut along the coast. Borrowing architecture and advertising from Western countries, the resorts were intended as chic getaways for families on weekends and longer holidays. Many building complexes had groceries, shops and even clubs close by for easy access. Built on the illegally privatised coast in Christian villages, the resorts were not only hotels or purely seasonal places, but constructed and sold as individual units. Each unit then passed down through a number of generations.
During the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1991), many families sought refuge for long periods of time in what was supposed to be temporary and luxury accommodation. At that point, the self-sustaining structures became bubbles, as if somehow removed from the war.
In the 70s and 80s, running across the grass to the pool, I felt safe inside the protective walls of the resort. The complex was one huge playground for children my age. Always in the pool, I loved the particular hue of the blue tiles and the reflection of the sky. The emptying of the pool always signalled the end of the season.
In general, it all felt contained, controlled, protected and as blissfully exotic as all the beach names implied: “Holiday beach”, “Malibu bay beach”, “Happy beach”. Yet swimming in the sea felt dangerous with its jagged rocks, pollution and being a dumping ground for weapons and bodies. Threatening like the war, it held within it the unknown. And at times, the war would infiltrate our bubble with the sound of bombs or militias using the resorts for meetings. For the most part though, the sprawling horizontal structure of the beach resort felt as if it were a harder target for a bomb to find.
As a teenager in the early 90s, I returned during the summers from Paris, filled with anticipation, looking for adventure. Lebanon was an adolescent heaven where we had carte blanche to do whatever we wanted – drinking, dancing, falling in love. On summer days we would lounge in our swim suits at the pool and then party late into the night, so close our parents never felt like we were out of the protective confines of the resort.
In 1998, I moved back to Lebanon permanently. I discovered Beirut and embedded myself in work. The beach resorts had by now lost their importance and become passé. Ten years went by and I began to think of them again, during a 98weeks workshop: The Ruin in the City with Lara Almarcegui and Cecilia Anderson. I was ready to reconnect to those places, in order to understand many things: my own history within the history of the country; how my relationship with my body sprang from these images and memories; how aspects of it informed my projects.
The collection of photographs came about organically, from strange encounters and multiple sources: researching in archives and on the internet; looking through family albums; taking pictures with my phone and ipad; from friends over the years and from the glossy photos of commissioned professional photographers. Authorship, timelines, varied resolutions, compositions, levels of professionalism all converge, capturing the different roles of photography and the areas from which they are sourced.