Floating above the ruins: art amidst chaos of war
Walking round Dahiyeh, the shattered southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut, there is a pleasant surprise for those able to look beyond the piles of rubble and tattered remains of people’s homes. Out of the trauma and chaos, children flying brightly coloured kites adorn some of the few walls that are still standing. Elsewhere, there are kites set loose and floating above the ruins. These lost kites, explains the graffiti artist Arofish who is the artist responsible for the designs, represent the children who have died in the conflict. He was invited to Beirut by residents to create art that would reflect the community’s spirit in the wake of the recent war.
Arofish developed the idea from his previous experience in Ramallah, Palestine, where the curfew imposed by the Israeli army meant that children sometimes had to stay inside for days at a time. They got round this by climbing onto the roofs of their houses and flying colourful kites. He remembered seeing this and felt that it was exactly the message of vitality that would reflect what he was witnessing in Lebanon.
The drawings form part of his ‘Scrawls of War’ project which has featured Arofish’s work in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon over the last three years. He travels to these areas which are under siege to create his work in collaboration with the local communities. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. He jokes that the secrecy he’s used to working in, throwing up a design under cover of darkness and watching for the response next morning, is impossible. The moment someone spots what he’s doing, whatever time of day or night, crowds start to gather round him, sometimes even offering comments and suggestions. He is a welcome distraction from the struggle of putting devastated homes and lives back together.
Arofish is not alone in his imaginative response to the war. A number of artistic projects have begun in the immediate aftermath and responding to the experiences of those in the country during that time. Most notable is the huge, conical statue in the centre of Beirut’s ‘Martyr’s Square’, which already features a statue commemorating those who died in the civil war. The memorial to the victims of the Sixth War is made from household objects and personal possessions rescued from the rubble of Dahiyeh. It was begun just days after the official end to the conflict. At the foot of the statue, stretched across a large area of the square, over 1000 small cuboids of stone were laid out, one for each person who died during the 33 days of war.
After completing the work in Beirut, Arofish travelled south to the devastated village of Aita al-Shaab, where he worked on a number of other pieces commemorating those from the region who had died, and are continuing to die in Lebanon.
Numerous people are still being killed as they return to their homes because of the huge amount of unexploded ordinance dropped across the entire region. Arofish’s work is one part of the long healing process that Lebanon now faces.
