At Beirut exhibit, Lebanese explore their capital's past

The exhibit reconstructs some scenes of the Lebanese capital's pre-civil war days, alongside photos, videos, and art installations. "We want this space to belong to the people of Beirut...

Lebanese artists, journalists and researchers have created a multidisciplinary exhibition in the historic building of Beit Beirut, revisiting the past of the city and exploring their relationship with Beirut today. The director of the "Allo, Beirut?" exhibition, Delphine Abirached Darmency, is a Franco-Lebanese journalist. She came up with the idea after she discovered the archives of Jean Prosper Gay-Para, owner of the once-famous Les Caves du Roy nightclub.

Darmency worked with a number of journalists and researchers to rebuild the history of Beirut's golden age from these archives, highlighting the 1960s of the Lebanese capital, "but also in a critical and analytical way, to understand what happened during this period that led up to a civil war in 1975," curator Roy Dib said. The exhibit reconstructs some scenes of the Lebanese capital's pre-civil war days, alongside photos, videos, and art installations.

"We want this space to belong to the people of Beirut... we wanted the exhibition, immersive, interactive, to feel you are included in it," said Darmency. "Allo, Beirut?" opened on Sept. 15 and is scheduled to run until 2023.

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