Dima Mabsout | UCSC APPLICATION PORTFOLIO 

2014-2015

FLEEING AND FORGETTING

RESEARCH / FILM / PUBLIC INTERVENTION

IN COLLABORATION WITH ELLA PARRY-DAVIES 


What is the relationship between the Syrian fleeing the war and the Lebanese trying to forget the war? How does that play out in public space?


Short Film: Our Children Hold our Secrets (4:36)





THE WORK CULMINATED IN

︎ Street interventions 

︎ Long table discussions and exhibition about the research at Mansion, Beirut.

︎ A chapter written by Ella about the work titled ‘Still Lives’: Syrian displacement and care in contemporary Beirut’ published in the book p.177 Performing Care: New Perspectives on Socially Engaged Performance
[TEXT ACCOMPANYING WHEATPASTES]


The war never existed. No one died, no one got hurt or displaced. No homes got destroyed. No one went missing.

For the post war generation, this is what we have evolved to believe- or forget.

To remember the war is as mythical as to believe that Beirut was once a big garden that blossomed every spring. Scents of roses everywhere, not of trash- so potent that it drove people mad. Gardenias,   Lilacs, Lavender drowned the streets of Beirut and ate up all the sidewalks with their greenery. People were drunk off the fumes. Alas, with the modern commerce of Beirut, this scene did not go unnoticed. Soon, every bush became privatized, exploited.

The rose market was monopolized and passed on to our children as they present the perfect profile for the trade.

See also Flower Kids.




This project was supported by
Performance Studies international (PSi),