Having been living away from Lebanon for over a decade at this point, taking photos was a way for me to capture my Lebanon in a way that could be preserved in my memory. It was important for me to incorporate the entire breadth of Lebanon (though I do not think it would be possible to do so in a lifetime); its beautiful sides, and the heart-breaking ones. Looking through the photos I had taken over the years, I became inspired to include photos that were taken for purely personal use, finding an academic and scholastic lens through which I could capture the highly fragmented, and unequal parts of the Lebanese experience. I was then able to use these photos to bring to light how internal borders were used to separate Lebanon from the refugees that lived amongst the Lebanese. Contrasting coloured photos with greyscale ones, I attempted to highlight what was celebrated in Lebanese society while also demonstrating the parts that were deemed invisible, or unworthy of mentioning, particularly in the attempt to preserve Lebanon as an idyllic escape on the Eastern Mediterranean. Setting the collage photos on a backdrop of Lebanon’s iconic landscape, the photos give a ‘zoomed in’ lens to the reality of Beirut, another juxtaposition to how ‘beautiful’ Lebanon has the potential to look to outsiders.
