50 Years Later - Where Do I Go?

لوين روح

2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War. As we approach this symbolic date, Lebanon still suffers its consequences – and more.

The past 4 years, conditions have deteriorated fast. After years of brutal Civil War, numerous conflicts, precarious peace, corrupt governments, months of protests, months of Covid-19 lockdown; the August 4, 2020 Port of Beirut explosions further plunged Lebanon into the abyss and total economic meltdown, with shortages of cash, gas, electricity, medicine, and water. According to the World Bank, Lebanon experienced the most devastating, multi-pronged crisis in its modern history, and one of the most severe crises globally since the mid-nineteenth century.

When this project started in 2020 after the Port Explosions, I found hope and inspiration in the women who were volunteering in the reconstruction. Instead of focusing on destruction, I chose to focus on their majestic presence, their creativity, strength, dignity, and resilience.

The project kept evolving as I collaborated with them and as the situation on the ground kept evolving. The port explosions now feel like part of the linear history of a country defined by conflicts for close to 50 years. We collaborated against meaningful and symbolic backdrops of the unique textures of the country: layered walls of Beirut, the Mediterranean, raw mountains, traditional and abandoned buildings, and the many layers of destruction accumulated over the years. Every picture has a narrative. The women, the land, the architecture are intertwined. The collaboration is intense, creative, emotional, and personal. The need to hold on to creativity and self-expression feels urgent.

I see my younger self in these women. I viscerally feel their hopes, their pains, dreams, fears, and dilemmas. I was twenty when I left Lebanon in 1984 during the Civil War, to go study in the United States, in what had been the largest wave of emigration–until now. Many are now at that same juncture.

The work is focused on Lebanon, but it speaks to a whole area and era of life in many countries in the Middle East, to the collapse of a country, to the lasting effect of war and trauma, but also to the resilience, strength, and creativity of a population as seen through its women, at a time where women from the Middle East are grossly misrepresented in the media. It also speaks of exile, my own, but also those young women’s and the painful decision they face in determining whether to leave home, or to remain despite the fraught conditions.

While my photographs may not provide answers or solutions, I hope they can act as moments of contemplation in finding the beauty, the humanity, and the grace that still exist despite all. They are my love letter to the women of Lebanon.

Since I wrote the artist statement, things have changed drastically in Lebanon, and Lebanon finds itself under the bombs again. I have lived through the 1982 and the 2006 Israeli invasions of Lebanon and I am still traumatized by both. The sounds and the terror never go away. This time around, things are even worse with no clear end in sight. It is difficult following the news from the outside and worrying about my country, my people, my family, and many of the young women in the photographs who come from all areas of the country. Some have been displaced and others, the more fortunate ones, are now volunteering in providing food, blankets, housing, etc. Everyone is affected.

I hope the horror will end soon.

I hope the images above help show the humanity, strength, and majestic power of the women featured in this work. I am inspired by every single one of them.