Best Student Exhibition Award
Prague Quadrennial 2023
Puzzles
A mechanical impression of Beirut
Interactive mechanical installation, 2023
Awarded Best Student Exhibition of PQ 2023
Puzzles is an interactive installation that pictures the events that happened in Lebanon between 2019 and 2023. Made of upcycled objects and simple mechanisms, it generates movements and a soundscape that reflect the chaotic reality of Beirut, while displaying stories and memories of some of its citizens about places of the city.
Project leader and executor: Mara Ingea
Research and dramaturgy consultant: Natasha Karam
Curator: Hadi Damien
Since 2019, Lebanon has witnessed a succession of crises and catastrophes that has reshaped its society, economics, and landscapes. Beirut has been particularly affected, witnessing almost simultaneously social uprisings, a pandemic, a gigantic destructive blast, and different kinds of shortages. This series of changes has influenced the way of navigating through daily life and has affected the perception of the space in constant modification.
Puzzles is an installation that is based on Beirut’s recent and current history. Different elements made of upcycled objects and materials are put together to form a mechanical machine, representing various events that happened in Lebanon during these past four years. Visitors are invited to interact with this machine, pulling ropes, turning gears, or filling buckets with rocks, to activate the space, and thus becoming its engine. The soundscape and movements that these interactions create, reflect the chaotic reality of life in Lebanon, giving a sonic impression of the city in a state of crisis.
All over the installation are hung stories, memories and testimonies shared by some citizens in their own voices. Displaying places of the city that are gone, places that (re)appeared, or ephemeral places, these texts attempt to picture the city’s landscape in constant change, while anchoring the machine in the Lebanese context.
The various ways of interacting with this machine give the visitors the possibility of being proactive within what it offers, manipulating its elements to put it in motion, or simply reading the stories and observing its causes and effects without participating in their creation. Puzzles aims to convey an impression of Beirut that oscillates between a tragically absurd reality, and the memories and dreams of the Lebanese citizens.
