Darling show me where the cedars grow

2019/20

“Darling show me where the cedars grow, where our ghosts stay in the shade” is a project that came into being during my ten-day trip to Lebanon in 2017. During my quest I have addressed the question how to conserve personal memories and how to transform them into a multi-layered readability.

I worked on a series of drawings capturing objects and sceneries in my immediate environment. These were then combined with fragments of lyrics by Lebanese band Soapkills – written by a Lebanese-born friend of mine. In addition I took several series of analog photographs depicting everyday objects and situations in different places in Lebanon.

The interview video “Jasmina” is another part of this project. It introduces 90-year-old Michel Sfeir, owner of the Antiquities and Brocantes shop “Societe Sfeir” in Gemmayzeh Beirut. He sold me an antique book whose pages I have combined with photographs and drawings from my journey. In this way the book transforms into an archive of old and new memories.

“Darling show me where the cedars grow” is a video collage showing fragmentary video records from my stay in Lebanon. For the audio component I worked with Musician Hanno Stecher (Kalpour) who composed the soundtrack.