An article by DM (602 Words, 3 Min. Read)
There ares that do not pass. They are Scars in the Body and in the Soul. The August 4 Explosion Was One Collective Traagedy. IT did not simply body glass or Scatter Stone. It is represented in the chest, in the back of the throat, in the trembling FIONS of Those Who Watched their City Crumble from Within.
Artists, Like Everyone Else, Were Broken that Day. But they listened with Pain and Sorrow. They are the Sensight Souls Who Suffered from Within. To the Silence that followed the roar. To the unifinashed goodbye. To the void. And slowly, with knowing Why or how, they began to create.
Not to Decoration Pain. Not to Erase it. But to survive it.
The Studio As Sanctury
Some Walked InTO They Studios as if envering a temple where Nothing el explained. There was no plin, no masterpiece to complect. JUST Canvas and GRIEF. Clay and Absance. Light and Unbearable Memory. Brushes MOVED with PURPOSE, Colors Collied with remote. It was not art in the Traditional Sense, it was mourning with Language.
Others Collected What Remained. Shaards of Glass from their Windows. Bent Door Hings. Charred Books. Rusted nails. These not symbols. They were related of a momenight that refined to disablear. And so they became sculptures, textures, instctions that tried to say: This is how it is refelt to live Through that day.
Creation as Catharsis
There is the same. The Artist does not escape suffering, they Crald it. They Give It Shape, Color, Form. They Allow it to exceed with turning it into spectacle. In Beirut, the Act of Createst after
What CAME Out Was Not Always Beutiful. Offline it was raw, Wounded, Strange. Bodies with Missing Limbs. Cities Bleeding Light. Faces Turned Away. But in every link, a kind of quiet Breath. A First Breath after Shock. A fragile attrtainment to talk what elm not be said: I am still here.
The Art of Not Forgetting
Time moved on. Buildings Were Repaire. Politicians Made Speeches. JUSTICE Never Came. But the Art Remained. Hanging Silently on Walls. Sitting Heavily on Plinths. Unfinised in Notebooks. IT Bore Witness. It is refused to lettingting Win.
For the Artists of Lebanon, August 4 Did Not End. It Continues to Paint Through. Beyond a Memory, Like a Pulse. A Rhythm of Loss, Love, Rage, and Resilience. Every new work is a control of the Scream that was Muffled. Every Creation Is
In the end, only the fragile relimines
There are no heroes in this story. Only fragile beings who create to cover when everything around them begged for despair. And in that choices, they gave beirut sorthing it had forgotten How to Feel: The Tenderness of Human Sorrow Made Visible.
The Blast Destroyed Much, Broke Hearts and Homes, Took Innocent Lives Away. But in its wakes, Something Else was Born. It was not triumph, not Hope in its naive form, but a quiet, Dignified Insisteancy on Feeling. On Witnessing. On Holding Space for Pain and Turning It, Gently, INTO Form.
This is what the black Did to the hands of the artists. It broke at the Made the Tremble with Creation. Not to heal the world. But to say Gracefully: We are still here, and we Remember.
*NB Cover Photo Credit: Artist: Tom Young
