What is happening in Lebanon?

Lebanon’s multidimensional crisis did not occur overnight but rather is a product of a decades-long political and economic policy build-up. A network of interdependent private interests shaped Lebanon’s post-war economic model, leading to its collapse. After fifteen years of war, from 1975 to 1990, a rent-seeking economy relying on the real estate and banking sectors eroded state infrastructure and utilities in favor of their privatization. The collapse of this model in 2019 led to severe socio-economic consequences, which were only compounded by COVID-19 and the Beirut port explosion in 2020; Lebanon is now a site of one of the world’s worst economic crises since the 1850s. The resulting repercussions have trickled down and manifested in the daily realities of the people; they are excessive in nature and constantly proliferating, taking different shapes and forms. And while thousands left the country both legally and illegally, looking for a better future elsewhere, many stayed despite the daily manifestations of the crisis that are partially shared and sporadic across households, neighborhoods, and social classes. Individuals could not simply take a passive stance against the failure of state services and lack of basic utilities; they had to find alternatives. Today, businesses, families, and individual households are supplied with only a couple of hours of state-generated electricity; they are consequently organizing their days around arbitrary outages. In many areas, gaps in electricity supply have now been covered by a total reliance on private generators, offering a more systematic outage schedule. This reliance comes at a price as extremely high bills are being charged in U.S. dollars rather than the collapsed national currency, rendering the cost of this basic utility over 400% more expensive. As a result of the collapsed energy grid, residents of Lebanon have resorted to solar power as a more efficient and sustainable alternative. In Beirut and beyond, any view from an elevated point can testify to the bourgeoning solar panels on rooftops; you would quickly notice added patches of a dark-blue layer supported by metallic structures in the already-chaotic urban landscape.

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Infrastructure failures have extended to incorporate another vital utility, namely water; turned-on faucets inside the flats have barely one or two drops of water coming out, indicating yet another shortage. The residents have turned to private water companies to fill either their buildings’ tanks or their private individual tanks, all of which sit on the rooftops; a stage where the crisis plays out materially. Water trucks can be seen parked on the streets, with thick black hoses sticking out and extending up to the top of the buildings to fill out the said water tanks. The individuals’ determination to provide for themselves has further been evidenced in their approach to banks, which contain increasingly evaporating deposits and savings. Since the outset of the economic crisis, banks have transformed into sites of volatile hostility and have become heavily securitized, even militarized in places. Long lines have formed outside the banks and ATMs as depositors wait to withdraw what little they are allowed to from their imprisoned savings. Such scenes take place under the cautious gaze of private security and police officers. Banks are also heavily guarded with metallic sheets, completely wrapping the facades of the buildings, further insinuating a fear of deposited money breaking out of its confines. Such security measures were a direct response to wanton acts of violence, such as vandalism and break-ins committed by the protestors, as well as the nigh-daily incidents of armed depositors breaking into banks and holding staff hostage until the requested amounts of cash are released.

These cracks and traces of Lebanon’s economic crisis have become very visible in the social, cultural, and urban fabric of the city, transforming the lived realities of its inhabitants and ushering them into new forms of survival.

As the economic crisis reaches its third year, Author’s founder Oona spoke with the Lebanese artist, Dia Mrad, about his recent Utilities exhibition. The purpose of this discussion was to accurately depict the crisis to a global audience through the eyes of someone living in Beirut. In this interview with Author, Dia explained the background for creating the exhibition, the everyday challenges people in Lebanon are faced with, and how artists are using this crisis to connect the country with the outside world.

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Oona: You seek to excavate the built environment and record, through your lens, the many artifacts of Lebanon’s economic crisis. What in particular stood out for you creating this series?

Dia – This series started with the objective of answering a question I was frequently asked when I traveled through 2022: How’s the situation [like] now in Beirut? I felt like I couldn't answer this question fully without becoming aware of what is happening, at least on an urban level, which speaks to my practice of documenting the city. Upon returning to Beirut, I started to observe and direct my attention to the elements portraying reality. It would be hard to pinpoint the crisis to photographable urban elements. As I walked [through] the streets of Beirut, I could feel the anger, the disappointment, the frustration, and the emotional struggle engulfing the city. But I had to look for symbols and signs that are able to portray this new reality. The first element that stood out to me was the addition of solar panels on the rooftops of Beirut, which are even visible from the streets. This recent addition was [manifesting] at such a fast pace and on such a large scale that it felt like something was changing overnight. I was curious to understand how a country that is undergoing a financial crisis was able to afford this relatively expensive solution. I decided to buy my first drone and try to document this process from an aerial perspective; I started to truly understand the scale of this addition. Something that stood out to me was the calmness of the shots and the contradiction they posed against what was really going on. This first approach informed the rest of the work by looking for elements that are added onto the cityscape, symbolizing the ongoing crisis or the ways that people are overcoming it.

Oona: In your own words, what is happening in Lebanon?

Dia – What’s happening in Lebanon is truly insane on so many levels. It’s suffocating and confusing. This project is an attempt to answer that very question. “What’s the situation like in Beirut now?” is something I've been asked more times than I can count. It’s [both] madness and it’s maddening. We’ve all actually been the victims of a major Ponzi scheme and we have no way of seeking retribution or justice. We’ve been scammed by our own government, [which has] only become apparent in the last few years. And right now, we are suffering the dire consequences of that scheme which started with our deposited money being stolen from our accounts and the inevitable collapse of our national currency. Not to say that we deserve what happened to us, but you reap what you sow and we’ve definitely sown some seriously rotten seeds. Even when presented with an opportunity to correct our mistakes through the recent elections — we failed. We reelected the same corrupt ruling class that has drained the country of its money and people. It’s madness — the way we live is mad; the way we make money is mad; the way we spend that money is even madder. We seem to have become numb to this madness. We seem to have lost our belief that we can have the power to change all of this. We’ve completely let go and we spend our days trying to adjust and adapt.

Oona: How have these cracks and traces of Lebanon’s economic crisis become visible in the social, cultural, and urban fabric of the city?

Dia – The economic crisis has become very visible, you cannot miss it. Despair is in the air and it surrounds every aspect of our lives, from the huge increase in the number of beggars on the streets and the crazy lines of people waiting to buy bread; to withdraw money from the ATMs; to fill up fuel; to buy basic medication and necessities — you can feel the crisis all the time. We are angry. We are frustrated. For those of us still living in Lebanon, a huge part of our lives is missing. We miss our friends who immigrated in search of a better life; we miss talking to each other and not having to complain about the difficulties we face daily; we miss going out without having to consider a million things beforehand; we miss being able to turn on the lights after midnight; we miss not having to worry about our income [and] finding work. It really is a crazy situation that has infiltrated every facet of our lives. Can you dismiss the crisis? Even those who are [either] able to overcome the daily manifestations of the crisis or aren’t thinking about it are bombarded with reminders everywhere in the urban landscape. You cannot leave your house, without being faced with an army of water tankers roaming the streets and reminding you of the water shortage. You cannot even sit in your apartment and isolate the noise coming from the street. You cannot overlook the sight of the heavily securitized banks, now adorned with metal sheets covering their once-glazed facades. Even looking out from a balcony, you can spot the electricity crisis in the form of newly added solar panels. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, the country going through a conversion to sustainable energy. But it is an enforced solution — not out of choice but out of necessity. It’s sad and symbolic. It only shows you that we know better, we know how to solve our problems. So why isn't this mentality applied on a larger scale? Why are we only concerned with temporary small adjustments instead of truly targeting the bigger problems we have? Instead, we learn to live with them and just make it to the next day.

Oona: And how is that displaying itself in the Lebanese art world?

Dia – While art production continues to be of impressive scale in Lebanon, the chance to show that art and for the public to perceive it has become dimmer and dimmer. The 2020 explosion played a major part in this phenomenon as most art-related spaces and artist studios were damaged by the blast. The economic crisis also played its role in distracting artists from producing by keeping them busy to stay afloat amidst a sinking economy. Even when the artists were able to produce, the spaces that used to host their exhibitions were no longer available. But like any international crisis, the one in Lebanon provided artists with a subject matter and a lot of emotions that needed to be expressed. We are all angry and we have a lot to say. We, as artists, are lucky in the sense that we have this creative outlet through which we are able to express, connect, and start the process of healing. For me, it has been both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, I am able to express my feelings through my work which lets me approach my point of view with others and develop a sense of community. On the other hand, it is a hard task as it leaves me in this space of feeling things all the time; I am unable to extract myself from this reality and disconnect. And with no end in sight for our troubles, I seem to have become completely immersed in it. The 2019 revolution and the onset of the economic crisis were heavily manifested in the streets through the work of graffiti artists that quite literally painted the town, a daily reminder of the harsh realities we live in. Photographers and painters were racing to document and portray this new reality. [They] were able to not only express their and the population’s feelings but were also essential in raising international awareness on sociopolitical and economic issues. The changing landscape of the country due to the revolution, the blast, and the economic crisis provided artists with a canvas on which they were able to express [themselves], which in turn helped Lebanon connect with the world.

Oona: What about the physical manifestation of transforming the lived realities of inhabitants and ushering them into new modes of survival?

Dia – Our lives are completely transformed by the economic crisis and its subsequent consequences on our daily activities. The crisis transformed our lived reality into a surreal one. A lot of times, I feel like I am in a mental asylum. People, including myself, seem to have totally lost it. We’ve become crazy. We’ve been living in survival mode since the 2020 explosion — even before the revolution started. It has been one thing after the other, and can you blame us for going crazy? There is [only] so much that the human mind can handle and we reached the tipping point a while ago. We still manage to go out, party, and live each day as if it were the last day of our lives because, actually, it just might be. We have no guarantees and no safety. We live in a turbulent world and at any point, everything can fall apart and our constructed reality will come crashing down. It is an inexplicable state of fragility and vulnerability. We act strong but, in reality, we are breaking down. We fake it, but are we really going to make it? I do not think so; not unless we make drastic changes. It is only temporary and only a matter of time before we have to face what we've created. We've only been mastering the art of ignoring it and we’re pretty damn good at hiding it.

Oona: Your work focuses on the infrastructural dimensions that were most affected by the crisis and its material manifestation, one that consists of added layers — rather than those absent — onto the city’s urban fabric as economic crises are associated with a lack of materials.

Dia – Looking at the economic crisis in Lebanon from an urban perspective, I had to come up with a methodology that allows it to be portrayed. And while usually a crisis is associated with a lack of material, in this case, I turned to look at the materialistic layers that were being added onto the city’s urban fabric as a manifestation of the crisis, and a manifestation of the ways in which people are adapting to the crisis. This contradiction can be felt more specifically with the addition of solar panels and new water tanks on the rooftops of buildings. While that action [in] itself does not necessarily refer to a crisis, in the case of Lebanon, it is representative of an infrastructural collapse and the action taken by individuals to overcome it. The crisis could have been showcased with images of empty shelves in supermarkets and pharmacies, or gas stations out of business due to the lack of fuel, which is a more orthodox way of reporting on a crisis. But, in line with my practice of documenting the city and the built environment, I had to look at changes on a bigger scale and not be so direct with my approach. So, for example, when it came to the banking sector, instead of showing the lack of funds, I chose to show the addition of a layer of metal that was added as a reaction to the hostility generated by the lack of funds.

Oona: Elaborate on your practice of ethnography at home: How you are advancing this idea further by centering yourself on the absence of human elements while focusing on the material urban landscape as a site of sociopolitical and economic phenomena?

Dia – Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the perspective of the subject of the study. Being immersed in Beirut’s social and urban landscape as an inhabitant and artist, my work can be perceived as ethnography at home, being at once the person conducting the study and the subject of it. It is rather a subjective ethnographic experience that aims not only to excavate and explore but to present a personal point of view stemming from living in the city and experiencing the different aspects of the cultural phenomenon associated with it. My work has always been an indirect way of representing this ethnography. By steering away from showing people and focusing on objects and the built environment, that is done by people and for them, the work focuses on the material manifestations related to peoples’ lives. At the end of the day, these objects and constructions are indicative of how we live and are a direct reflection of our experience in the city.

Oona: What about capturing and isolating these contemporary artifacts, not for the sake of decontextualization, but for representation or manifestation while you blur the lines between the signifier and the signified?

Dia – “[…] Artifacts, things, etc., actively shape, impact and transform the perception and, consequently, the understanding — human beings have of the world in which they dwell” (Kirchhoff, 2009). Building upon this definition, the project employs an archaeological lens in excavating the urban landscape of Beirut in search of signs of the crisis. Artifacts in archaeology are telling [about] a way of life [during] a specific time. They provide insights into the daily practices that govern people’s lives and constitute an entryway into their mindsets. By decontextualizing the objects related to this economic collapse, the project blurs the lines of signification by representing the crisis through elements that are not necessarily indicative of it. According to Peirce, “We think only in signs” (Peirce, 1931). Signs take the form of words, images, sounds, odors, flavors, acts, or objects. But such things have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning. “Nothing is a sign unless it is interpreted as a sign,” declares Peirce (Ibid.). Anything can be a sign as long as someone interprets it as “signifying” something — referring to or standing for something other than itself. Keeping this in mind and looking at the artifacts of the crisis in Lebanon, the objects themselves become the crisis, containing within them not only an indication or a sign but going further to embodying the crisis itself.

CREDITS

Interview by Oona Chanel

Introduction by Philip Alexandre Livchitz

Picture courtesy of Dia Mrad

What is happening in Lebanon?

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