Earlier this month, the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and its partners opened a two-week photo exhibit at the American University of Beirut’s Jafet Library, featuring vivid and often deeply personal photographs submitted for its “The War As I See It” youth photo contest. Students, professors, experts, and journalists packed into the library space lined with the 26 photographs in oversized frames.
The photo contest and exhibit were organized by ICTJ to raise awareness about the importance of truth seeking and truth telling about people’s experiences of the civil war and post-war violence, on the 25th anniversary of the end of the war.
The stars of the night were the five prize winners — Sibylle George, Christina Boutros, Sami Ouchane, Tamara Saade, and Hanin Aboulhosn —who received photography courses from Nikon School Lebanon and certificates from the Swiss Ambassador in Lebanon Francois Barras.
After the award ceremony, visitors engaged in an important and lively discussion about the war and its legacy.
“Traces [of the war] are still apparent in our environment,” said George, 22, who won the grand prize for a stark black-and-white photo taken in her grandmother’s living room of an open book pierced by a bullet hole. “The scars are still noticeable even in the smallest objects.”
Contest participant Sarah-Lee Accaoui saw the war in the face of her grandmother who lost her husband when a missile hit their home in Beirut.
In the absence of formal inquiries into the war or a common history curriculum, stories about the war have passed down from the war generation to the new generation. This “state-sponsored amnesia” has allowed political and social factions to compete over the war narrative, leaving victims and the larger public without answers to what really happened during the 15-year conflict.
“The civil war in Lebanon is still a taboo [subject],” said Saade, 19, the winner of a special prize for her photo of people at the beach relaxing beside walls nibbled by bullets. “I never lived the war but I still pay the price for its consequences today.”
Common among the young photographers was a real curiosity to learn from – and reflect on – the war.
“This exhibition is a must,” said Sari Hanafi, Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Media Studies at AUB. ”It’s a process of refreshing our memory to address the consequences of the war. Not just for remembering but for remembering to act.”
Plans are underway to bring the photo exhibit to different parts of Lebanon to continue the conversation about the necessity of unraveling the truth about the past to understand its violence and limit its effects on the in future.
“For Lebanon to move on and have a better future they must first deal with their wounds from the past,” said Saade.
You can view all 26 photographs featured in the exhibit here.
