Lamia Joreige
Using different media – not only drawing but also photography, video, objects and installations – Lamia Joreige explores the relationships that we foster with history and the impact that they have on us. Based on real and historical facts, how does one create forms and narratives? That is the main question Joreige asks herself, after having gathered together an immense amount of research and written documents, most frequently on Lebanon and its region. Over the past few years, the artist has taken a keen interest in the constitution of her country around the time of the First World War. “The troubles occurring in Syria that may have consequences on all the surrounding territories have reminded me of that other moment in history when nations were redesigned and fragmented,” she starts to explain. She thus delves into the memoirs of King Faysal, who could have headed the first independent Arab monarchy, had his project not failed; or immerses herself in the throes of the massive famine of 1915, caused by an invasion of locusts, diverse speculation and maritime blocades. She then attempts to comprehend the mental and physical impact of these devastating events on the population.
In her most recent series, Uncertain Times, Faisal’s Dream, Joreige concentrated on drawing. She used this medium a great deal in the 1990s, though in a more figurative manner. “Faced with this abundance of information, I felt the need to draw, so as to remain close to – or even embody – the original documents,” she continues. “I also included their translation in the work, like evidence of the force and aura of these historical sources. Without wishing to be too didactic, I wanted the spectator to be able to understand what is being talked about here.” In large-scale installations, she can then combine these works with photographs or other original archival documents. To these she discreetly adds elements of her own family history, always playing on this tenuous link between personal and collective. Through recollections of her great-grandfather, for example, she pays homage to the intellectuals of the era. This space within which each spectator may absorb part of the narrative is thus slipped into the work, for Joreige generally speaks of what she calls “the weight of reality”. She had previously explored this in earlier pieces, where she tackled themes related to the human body or solitude, to anxiety or finitude, in the face of which nobody can remain indifferent…
(texte de Marie Maertens).
