Middle Finger to the City

The concrete structure sandwiched between the first and last slides in this series is the Interdesign building designed by Khalil Khouri in 1973. As ArchDaily puts it, “the building took 23 years to build, a process halted by the onset of the Lebanese Civil War. By the time it was completed in 1996, the urban landscape that surrounded it had changed. The structure has stood largely unused since, as a relic of hopeful modernity. While its design is singular in its narrative and expression, this structure illustrates the tension between aspiration and struggle throughout its complex history.” I first learned … Continue reading “Middle Finger to the City”

We Toasted to Victory

This is the moment we visited my father’s grave. It was the first thing we did, the day after I landed in Beirut. Among these images, some frames I remembered him occupying the last time we were all here together, when he could still walk with difficulty, and could point out the ancestral landmarks to me and Christine. I didn’t look back at those photos I’d taken of him back then. I just felt them in the moment. “If I were you, I’d constantly be going around like: do you know my small Lebanese hometown is basically a cult run … Continue reading “We Toasted to Victory”

Irreducible Squares

This wasn’t where I went to the first mass protest in my life, but it was the very first one I went to consciously and after agonizing about what to do. We were all caught up in the mess of affairs, but we were not all parsing them the same way, and the pressure of choosing the right side of history felt visceral at that young age. I don’t think I’ve admitted this to anyone yet, but I cried the night before, frustrated by the contrasting narratives I was scrambling to absorb in order to understand what is to be … Continue reading “Irreducible Squares”

Ghosts in the Frame

A few hours after I shared about wondering if it was time to nag the lab for my scans (it wasn’t), I saw them in my inbox, much earlier than the turnaround had promised. Spooky… Because there’s something inherently ghostly about seeing film come back weeks after having already processed your experience of a place digitally, especially when some frames are similar while others are not. It’s like the sedimentation of memory itself; every re-telling is another exposure on the film of your mind: hazy, layered, and re-imagined. I came to this spot because, to me, it represented my father, … Continue reading “Ghosts in the Frame”

Existential Jet Lag

I was checking my calendar to see if it was time to poke the photo lab about my Lebanon rolls when it occurred to me that I hadn’t even been back two weeks yet; why does it feel longer? Why does so much feel like existential jet lag right now? Twice in the last week, I’ve weirded myself out with my emotional responses or non-responses to things that came up. Shying away from conflict when I don’t normally; having a meltdown in a way I don’t recognize as myself; both ends of the spectrum, but both feeling foreign. There’s something … Continue reading “Existential Jet Lag”

Between Hammer & Sickle

“The Paris Commune failed, Russia was isolated and collapsed in the end under its own contradictions and many more examples in between. Does this mean hope is lost? No, however, Marx in Brumaire, talks about revolutions which ‘constantly interrupt themselves in their own course, return to the apparently accomplished, in order to begin anew’. He recognised that revolutions ‘deride with cruel thoroughness the half-measures, weaknesses, and paltriness of their first attempts.’ We should take quite seriously that we are in the midst of many first attempts, and believe we can learn and build on them – that is what it … Continue reading “Between Hammer & Sickle”

Back in Seattle

What’s that line making the rounds lately? Photography is just time and light? Lebanon is generous with at least one of those. And now I’m back in Seattle where light is less abundant, but I have more time to think. Home is where you’re welcomed back. That’s the thought that’s occurred to me since returning. No need to complicate things more than that. Simply noticing the “welcome home” to “welcome back” ratio (something like 4:1) and appreciating the flux. I’m home when I’m welcomed back to Lebanon. I’m home when I’m welcomed back to Seattle. I say this in a … Continue reading “Back in Seattle”

Beirut/Bellingham/Borderlands

I’m on the Beirut Airport wi-fi waiting for my flight to Istanbul on my way back to Seattle, seeing if I can post these double-exposures I made with @christine.bingham.art and @night_bydesign. Christine and I took the first exposure in Bellingham, which is the same city I took a first exposure the last time I did a film swap like this. It was around Thanksgiving, so we were still reeling from U.S. politics, which probably informed our vague concept. A lone soldier, a ghostly presence; and with Audrey’s lush exposures in Volunteer Park, an added layer of camouflage and obfuscation, perhaps. … Continue reading “Beirut/Bellingham/Borderlands”

Time is a Bastard

This is a photo that mom has framed in her living room. I didn’t ask when or where it was taken; it feels familiar. I’ve seen it many times, but now, of course, in new light. Time is a bit of a bastard. Time can be cruel at times, in fact. But there’s wisdom in time. There’s a deep knowing. I’ve had to sit face to face with time quite a bit during this trip and it wasn’t always comfortable. But it was good and necessary. We’re making peace. I don’t think we’ll ever be more than cordial, but that’s … Continue reading “Time is a Bastard”

Lebanon: Day 9

I was charmed by this whole area. Google Maps insisted on sending us in random directions, but the locals kept us on the right path, joking with us about the almost-nonexistent signage pointing the way. At one point, Google sent us down a road that turned out to be blocked; “maqtou3a, maqtou3a,” a guy on his scooter told us. Before we knew it, another guy in a pickup truck opened up the gate to his farm and told us to drive through his land to get back down to the main road. All in the typical Druze accent and matter-of-fact … Continue reading “Lebanon: Day 9”