Shifting Lights is a collaborative exhibition that invites viewers to become participants in a conversation that explores our collective experiences of turbulence in Lebanon and the region. With nuanced shifting of light and space, both physical and emotive, our contemplative discourse comes to life through nine structures that layer presence and memory, oscillating between reality and aspiration.

When designing this exhibition, we sought to reconcile the harsh space and its wounded past with the art works. Thus, an installation of nine cylindrical structures was brought to life, each serving as an intimate viewing pod for one of artist Afaf Zurayk’s paintings. In contrast to the private and opaque interior of the pod, the walls are seen as translucent from the outside, highlighting silhouettes of the viewers, who are now participants.

The pods’ shape is inspired by strokes recovered from Afaf’s paintings and projected into space. Noel Nasr’s magnified photographs of Afaf’s paintings envelope the pods. Shifting between the magnified details in the photographs, and the experience of the whole in the paintings, the installation surrenders to intangible forces that bridge, connect, and nurture.

Groundless and suspended, the nine structures, along with the nine paintings they envelope, hang precariously. As effigies, they stand together to address our personal and collective narratives of violence, displacement, and loss.