Oblivion leaves sediments too. On the surface of cities or in the depth of the sea. It may, in time become memory.
WHITE MIDDLE SEA (ongoing since 2010)
The Mediterranean sea (المتوسط الأبيض البحر - the White Middle Sea in arabic) is the geological and intangible heritage of all identity sedimentations. Open basin or cosmopolitan diversity graveyard to three continents, Africa, Asia and Europe.
I walk & walk in my natural habitat, its mountains, rivers, seasides, forests, cities, islands...
My eyes are those of an urban 'geologist', but my gaze is erratic: I wander its landscapes as if self-exiled.
Sedimentations of songs, stories, myths, migrations & longings leave a trace behind my path, some visible and some hidden.
From shore to shore, layout and stratification, alienation, immobility, raw fiction, the poetics of light and humour, all play their part in this narrative.
click on image to watch video
loop silent video from installation
The body of work WHITE MIDDLE SEA takes its roots in the specific phenomenon of my first trip on a boat, in late spring 1976, not knowing that this was my first time to migrate, from Beirut to Larnaca and then to Athens. In this series, I pretended to speak about my childhood, yet my real childhood had disappeared. I have lied about it so often since, that I no longer have a real memory of this time, and my childhood has become one lost yet familiar landscape.
Aren’t we made out of all the landscapes we have seen and we have forgotten?
*CLICK ON IMAGES TO SEE LARGER
Athens, Attica
Alexandria, Egypt
South of Lebanon
Paranesti, Drama
Alexandria, Egypt
Kardamili, Peloponese
Agora, Athens
Tripoli, Lebanon
Marsala, Sicily
Patra, Peloponese
Zouq Mkayel, Lebanon
Peristeria, Salamina
Karpovoulos, Samos
Saida, Lebanon
Palaio Faliro, Attica
Borgo Fenicio, Sicily
Doloi, Mani, Peloponese
Apetra, Crete
Motya, Sicily
Aghiasos, Lesbos
Larnaca, Cyprus
Tilos, Aegean sea
Dbaye, Lebanon
Livadi Geranou, Patmos
Tyre, Lebanon
Matera, Puglia
Kardamili, Mani, Peloponese
Xirocampos, Leros
Borgo Riena, Sicily
Mondello, Sicily
Corniche el Naher, Beirut
Agiásos, Lesbos
Selinunte, Sicily
Favarra, Sicily
Beirut, Lebanon
Parco della Favorita, Palermo, Sicily
Eresos, Lesbos
Kastro, Tilos
Al Judaydeh, Lebanon
Pireaus, Attica
Tyre, Lebanon
Larnaca, Cyprus
Poetto, Sardegna
Marseilles, France
Beit Mery, Lebanon
Chora, Patmos
Pireaus, Attica
Sounion, Attica
Agia Marina, Leros
La Favorita, Palermo, Sicily
Mount Penteli, Attica
Erice, Sicily
Platanias, Chania, Crete
Piana degli Albanesi, Sicily
Isola dei Correnti, Sicily
Ain Mreisse, Beirut
Mikro Horio, Tilos
Tyre, Lebanon
Palermo, Sicily
Beit Mery, Mount Lebanon
Favara, Sicily
Ancient Olive-grove, Egina.
Nicosia, Sicily
Cyrene, Cyprus
Pireaus, Attica
Karpovoulos, Samos
Mytilini, Lesbos
Salina, Sicily
Polyrrhenia, Crete
Faliro, Attica
Jounieh, Lebanon
Marathona, Attica
Tripoli, Lebanon
Schinias, Attica
Mount Etna, Sicily
Aannaya, Lebanon
Santa Marina, Salina
e
Patras, Peloponese
Tyre, Lebanon
exhibition
The Ones We Love - Viaduct gallery (Des Moines, USA 2014)
Mediterranean Flux (Naxos, Greece, Sept. 2020)
