Body

(Video installation, four channel video, four channel sound, 16-minutes)

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The conceptual centerpiece of Body is a 35mm film found in rubble beneath a destroyed building in Beirut in 1992, following the end of armed conflict in Lebanon. With its original cinematic content having been destroyed, the ruined film itself becomes a physical and visual register of continuous urban destruction.

Body traces the visible and invisible, tangible and intangible residues of war in Beirut.

Body was commissioned by the Swiss Arts Council (Pro Helvetia) to premiere at the Ayam Beirut Al Cinema’iya (Beirut Cinema Days) in Beirut, 2004.

In 2006 the video installation was exhibited in Montreal, at Invisible City, 7e Manifestation Internationale Vidéo et Art Électronique. Body was acquired by the Vehbi Koç Foundation as part of its permanent collection of contemporary art.

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Vatche Boulghourjian and Catherine Cattaruzza

Narration by
Rabih Mroué

Translation by
Fadi El Tofeili