Mixing art with healing ceremonies is surely a talent, how did you manage to combine both and why?
I started with these questions: Is it possible to create an object or space that could attract positive healing energy and bring peace to a land that has endured so much violence? Is it possible to transform a land plagued by war and violence into a space of love and light? Is it possible for Beirut to become the international peace capital of the world; living by example, where people of all diverse backgrounds and ethnic groups co-exist in harmony. Where equitable human rights thrive, creativity flows and respect for all human, animal and plant kind prevails.
The core of my work has consistently been about taking an idea or object of violence and transforming it into something peaceful. To reconnect to love, in the most impossible of situations. The love that is the essence of who we are; the subatomic texture of the universe, the dark matter that connects everything.
My paintings are made in site-specific locations that endured violent and traumatic experiences such as environmental disasters, massacres and the torturing of human beings. I have worked in spaces like abandoned homes, the Khiam Prison and my family home in Hasbaya (occupied by the Israeli army for over 20 years and used as a military detention center). I have been conducting healing ceremonies across Lebanon (an internationally) working towards peace and reconciliation in nature and with communities. The ceremonies include a process of meditation, chanting, dancing / whirling, and lighting a symbolic purifying fire. From the residual carbon ashes, I create black ink that converses with the absence of light, with both space and void, and this is what I use to paint with. I paint with veils, symbolizing the death – or transformation – of worldly illusions. In this process, I transmutes negative energetic residues in the land into love and light.
The photography and videos on display at Beit Beirut document the locations where the healing ceremonies were been held.
I have also made large scale sculptural installation, compromised of 17,000 vertical wooden “lines”. The installation serves as a memory and remembrance dedicated to the 17,000 people still declared missing from the Lebanese civil war. The work also makes reference to the geographic location of Beit Beirut. The exhibition takes place on what was formerly called the Green Line. The Green Line was a line of demarcation in Lebanon between Christian and Muslim militias in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War. The name refers to the abundance of foliage that grew because the space was made uninhabited due to militia crossfire.
There is also a sound piece that ties the entire exhibition together. For this, I collaborated with Ray Hage to produce a work inspired by my poem entitled, 96% Love 4% Beirut :: Zero :: Śūnya. All the sound for this work was recorded onsite at Khiam Prison in south Lebanon and at Beit Beirut. All the background textures were created from the my voice, chanting my peace mantras on location.
I have also produced a series of ceramic and stone sculptures. In continuation of the mantras I paint, I have created 108 ceramic tiles of each of my “mantras”; love, compassion and forgiveness. The total of of 324 tiles are placed across Beit Beirut in conversation with what remains of the existing tiles first put in by Beit Beirut’s original architect, Youssef Aftimus, in 1924. Also on display are slate and ceramic sculptures with lines from my poetry.
There is also a workstation for mantra painting. Here, visitors to the exhibition can experience coloring meditation while painting the peace mantras. They may choose two mantras; one, they can take with them to hang anywhere they choose, the other is left for me to be collected and archived.
And finally, during the exhibition I will be leading a peace ceremony for 40 consecutive days, from 5-6 pm, daily. This work is open to public participation and will serve as a platform for participants to actively share in prayer and dialogue to cultivate a culture of peace, compassion, forgiveness and empathy.
Why did you choose Beit Beirut to exhibit your art?
It could only be here. I have made all the artworks in spaces just like Beit Beirut- war torn, abandoned relics. I work in site specific areas where massacres happened. I wanted to present the works in a space similar to where I had worked. Also being located on the former demarcation line is important. To honor all those who died or disappeared during the civil war and the wars that followed.
This beautiful yellow war torn building in Sodeco, was once home to militias and snipers, and is located on what was “the Green Line” or the former demarcation line that split the city of Beirut during the civil war. My aim with this exhibition is to transform Beirut into a “city of light”, using Beit Beirut, a relic of our war(s), to share my belief that art and culture can have a positive impact on society, and that this exhibition aims to transform what was once a symbol of violence into a platform for peace and reconciliation.
This will be the first time that Beit Beirut is open to the public with a solo exhibition.
What do your paintings, resulting from healing sessions, represent? What stories do they tell?
The painting that I do onsite is a dialogue with both the space and the void. I have always been fascinated by derelict spaces. What happens inside abandoned homes that were once witness to everyday life? To births, deaths, cooking, arguing and even love making?
There is also, of course, the process of archiving and collecting stories of our history. A big problem we have in this part of the world is this idea of collective amnesia. We try to forget the past as quickly as possible in order to move forward. In this process, we’re losing a lot of our history and culture and there is always the danger the next generation would repeat the mistakes. The biggest issue we face as a community is that, after the Civil War, we did not have a reconciliation process or closure and now, 20 years later, we’re seeing that the wounds have not healed.
By being fully present in these abandoned spaces, by bearing witness, by bringing awareness to a space, I believes we can develop a visual language that both comprehends what perhaps might be so fundamentally innate in us; our tendency towards violence as well as our capacity to love.
I believe that love is the true essence of human beings. The love that is the subatomic texture of the universe, the dark matter that connects everything. I work on the ground transferring imprints, energy and history onto the canvas hoping to relieve the land of its pain and burden. In a final act, I paint “mantras” in Arabic that read love (mawada), compassion (rahma), forgiveness (gufran) and peace (salam) and leaves them fixed in these spaces. These words serve as an offering to the space and the connecting dots in my growing global mantra peace grid. Using the power of thought, by simply repeating these words, with positive affirmations, I believe we can collectively send healing to these locations that have endured trauma.
There are 17,000 green wood structures in the exhibition representing the 17,000 Lebanese missing during the war. Why did you choose this type of art to represent them and what is the message behind it?
There are 17,000 people who are still declared missing from the civil war period. These people left home one day and simply never came back. They were killed, kidnapped or taken by militias for interrogation and never returned. No one knows where they are. Mass graves were never opened. And in the meantime, Beirut was quickly rebuilt. BO18, a nightclub listed by the international press as “one of the top 25 clubs to visit before you die” was built where the Karantina massacre happened a few months before I was born in 1976.
I have created an installation of 17,000 vertical “green lines”, one for each person. This is also a reference to Beit Beirut. Because the building was so dangerous, with snipers constantly shooting at each other, the street became a no-man’s-land. After a few years, due to lack of human activity, nature took over—trees and shrubs grew through the road and pavement—and so the demarcation line was also called the Green Line, because it was literally green. After the war ended, we never had a real reconciliation process. There are no memorials to the lives lost and we are still divided as a community with very little discussion of forgiveness. A lot of people believe we are not ready for this, but I disagree. I believe that 17,000 x Forgiveness as a work is also an extension to the idea of Mona El Hallak’s philosophy of Beit Beirut itself being a memorial to the civil war. Even still, I am not officially calling my work a memorial as we still don’t know what happen to these people. For now, it is simply a remembrance with the intention of finding a permanent location for it in our city. Until today, with the exception of the Martyr’s Square statue in downtown Beirut built to honor the martyrs executed in 1916 during Ottoman rule, we have yet to have an official physical work honoring the casualties of the many wars and invasions we have endured since. During the setup of the exhibition, I invited families of the disappeared to come in and participate in the building of a part of the installation. It was a very moving experience and the first manifestation of this project providing a platform for healing.
How can chanting mantras expel negative energy? And why does it need 40 days to heal?
It takes 40 days to change or break a habit and it is possible to adjust one’s life through changing one’s habits. By repeating a certain thought or action for 40 days, we adjust the neurons and the frequencies of our brain. We create new blueprints, new personality patterns. Our thoughts shape our realities and with a simple repetitive practice, we can even change the world around us. We can help build a global matrix of peace and reconciliation. On a more substantial level, chanting these words, love, compassion, forgiveness and peace in Arabic reintroduces nonviolent words back into daily Arabic vernacular. It also breaks global stereotypes, fueled by “the war on terror” imposed on the Arabic language and culture. Through global participation in painting these mantras, the Arabic language becomes an international instrument of peace.
Suffering is part of life, the same way love and joy are. Pain can not be avoided. If we embrace, accept and respect it, we learn to see pain as a teacher and not an enemy. If there is a specific pattern of pain in your life that seems to be on repeat, it is worth questioning what habits or thought patterns in your mind keep attracting that specific type of pain. If we can see it for what it truly is, without attachment, we can learn to let go of it. The law of attraction deems that we attract the energy that we give off. What we think will happen, will indeed happen. This all goes back to the power of thought and intentions. By repeating the words love, compassion, forgiveness, I believe we can become more loving, compassionate and forgiving to ourselves… and that overflow that we allow to spill out into the world around us, that manifests through our daily actions, that is what will change the world and make it more loving, compassionate and forgiving.
What is the reaction of people visiting the exhibition so far?
Wonderful so far! We have had close to 2,000 visitors since we opened last week Sep. 18. A lot are repeat visitors who keep coming back with friends, family and students.
Difficult emotions have been coming up, but the point of the project is to create a space for healing and encounter. Light exists within the dark. They are just two sides of the same coin. Sometimes, in the darkest of the night, that is when you find the truth, and it gives us the opportunity to heal and grow from our disasters. Pain can be the great teacher for compassion and war can teach us the value of peace. As a culture, we are not comfortable with talking about our pain publically, but the turnout and dialogue so far has been phenomenal. As I said above, we have had close to 2,000 walk through since our opening a week ago and taboos are being broken. I believe that the success is due to the fact that this is an exhibition about healing and not pointing fingers nor playing the blame game. As a nation, I believe what is most important now is to forgive, learn from our mistakes and move forward.
To facilitate this, in addition to the artworks, I am offering tools in workshops and lectures for people to help process the trauma. These workshops are given by artists and healers who have already contributed so much to healing people over the years. On top of that, every day for 40 days, I am holding a peace ceremony for those who want to attend. We are doing simple breathing and vocal exercises to help connect to that quiet place within and cultivate self love and inner peace. If we want to change our community or even the world, we have to start with ourselves first. I am also asking participants to write out their definition of peace and we are collecting these thoughts with the intention to share with the public after the exhibition is over. It is a sort of crowd sourcing peace process. Our thoughts shape our realities and the future is ours to create.
Inside the whole building, the art pieces are accompanied by poetry pronounced by you. What does it say and what is the message behind it?
The poetry are lines from my writing that express the concept behind the title. The idea being that sometimes the experience of war can teach you the value of peace. That pain can be our greatest teacher for compassion. That love and darkness exist simultaneously.
There is a lot of sound works in the exhibition. They are all samples taken of my voice while I was chanting in the locations where I held the healing ceremonies. For example, I worked in Khiam Prison. This prison was in the south of Lebanon, set up by the Israeli army during their occupation of south Lebanon. As of 2000, when Hizuballah forced the Israeli army out, the camp was dismantled and the prisoners set free. As always, I did a healing ceremony there, painted, and left a forgiveness mantra. But later, I went back to do a lot of singing to keep that energy going. People here were interrogated and tortured for many years and there is still a lot of healing work to be done.
I recorded myself singing to a metal box that they used to seal people into as a form of torture. With no air and light, they also used to bang heavy rocks on the top as a form of sound torture too. The box is so small it fits one person at a time in a squat position. I placed my recorder inside the box and sang for all the people who had endured that torture. With those voice samples, I created a piece with my music co-creator, Ray Hage, to produce a work entitled A Song to the Red Box. I am playing this work in a very sad part of Beit Beirut; a concrete bunker built by the militiamen, where the openings where snipers used to shoot out of have been preserved during the renovation work.
After healing Beit Beirut, are you planning on healing another building or location in Lebanon?
I have already worked on healing many locations and plan to continue to work in more locations in Lebanon and internationally.
This whole project first started by healing my family home in Hasbaya, in south Lebanon. Our house was occupied for 22 years by the Israeli army. It was on top of a hill, so for them it was a military strategic point. They appropriated the house and turned it into their headquarters. It was used as an interrogation center, and they were holding prisoners there. I never actually saw this home until 2000, until after the liberation of south Lebanon. I documented it, took a lot of photographs. But it wasn’t until very recent that I began to talk about what happened in it, or worked with the material I gathered there.
How do you intend to heal all of Lebanon?
This entire project first started with a question: Is it possible to create an object that, if you placed it anywhere, could generate peace? In the past five years, I asked many people this question. Some said yes, some no. Some gave suggestions of a physical object I could create, that was somehow linked to ideas of sacred geometry and crystals others gave political, educational or medical solutions. In the end, I found my answer: You are that object. You must work on a personal level to become that instrument of peace. Peace starts within. Change starts within. Healing starts within. If we can tune ourselves back to the source, back to love, then everything else will fall into place. We are the object.
With the reconciliation, it is also important that we speak openly about what happened. Rather than hide things under the rug as we have done in the past, I believe it is important to bring things to light. We have a new generation now that did not live the war and it is important that they know our history so that history doesn’t repeat itself. Perhaps at the time, it was important to call the general amnesty that we did. But today, over 20 years later, I believe we are finally ready to hear and hopefully make the apologies that we never did. The thing with pain is that sometimes it is a lot easier to deal with than we realize. Sometimes, by simply shedding light through an apology or acknowledgment, the heart opens and pain simply dissipates.