Yesterday I went to an exhibition at the Beirut Art Center that featured (among many other things) pictures of Beirut that were taken in 2003. It was funny to see those pictures, all very Beirut and also not Beirut. The pictures showed us a Beirut without the things that have changed since then. It reminded me of what my husband said, and I couldn't help wishing that I had started this blogging project back in 2004 when we first got here and things were quite different.
That's the trouble with preservation. You learn that it's necessary after sustaining a loss, not before.
I took this photo while I drove on a road that skirts the edge of what I suppose is a slum in Achrafieh. Change is its destiny, but no one knows how it will change, when, or what it will become.
Mmmm ... but you could say that of many of our blogs ... does one focus upon the old stuff or the new stuff ... on what was, or what will be?
ReplyDeleteJoan and I were commenting that our photographs are so important because we often record things that will be pulled down in a week or a month or a year.
I guess the world over is becoming a bit more blanc-mange as the minutes tick by ... diversity is still rampant though, and it is our 'responsibility' to search it out. You do well on this front ...
In the end, I think it's the kind of question that functions best as a thought exercise. The answer is unimportant.
ReplyDeleteAnd in any case, blogging photos of Beirut has been an exercise in recording what I want to remember more than an effort at unbiased documentation--as if such a thing were of interest or even possible.