On September 26, 2019, a diverse crowd of about 250 people descended upon UMAM D&R's The Hangar for the first solo exhibition by Sandra Schäfer in Lebanon. "Haret Hreik – Mleeta: (Re)Constructed Uncertainties" was the result of extensive research by the German artist from 2014-2016 about the intersections of architecture, geopolitical spaces, and propaganda in Lebanon. The exhibition consisted of two video installations and 22 poster-fragments with which Schäfer appropriated stills from a film by the Waad Project, a massive reconstruction program in Haret Hreik after the July war of 2006.

Partnering with the Goethe-Institut and the Heinrich-Böll Stiftung, UMAM D&R and Schäfer were able to bring the installations back to the neighborhood where part of the filming had taken place. Due to the national uprising that erupted on October 17, 2019, and the ensuing cultural strike by a number of organizations, including UMAM D&R, the exhibition was forced into a premature ending. Nonetheless, it was wildly successful and extremely well visited during the time it was open.

"Mleeta" (2016) was filmed and staged on location at the Museum of Resistance in Lebanon. During the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon (1982-2000), Mleeta Mountain stood right in the middle of the occupied zone. Thirty-five kilometers from Israel to the south and forty kilometers from Syria to the east, the mountain served as a haven for Hezbollah fighters, making it the site of real battles as well. The summit of Mleeta is now home to the Museum of Resistance, a propagandistic re-enactment that reproduces scenic and military scenarios. Set up in the style of a theme park, visitors assume the role of both observer and performer. An auditorium screens lavishly-produced films that dramatically tell the history of the past battles, while guns and other weapons are integrated into the museum’s architecture. Schäfer's installation explored this theme park’s script with its perspectives, stagings, and narratives, focusing on the creation of affective perception. The artist intervened into the staged setting through staged gestures, artificial audio recordings, and camera framings.

"Constructed Futures: Haret Hreik" (2017) was a video installation about the Shiite dominated neighborhood Haret Hreik in Beirut that houses the headquarters of the Hezbollah Party, which invisible to the outside. In 2006, the Israeli Army bombarded the neighborhood and Hezbollah quickly rebuilt it. This rebuilding project was part of a military conflict and a geopolitical network in which architecture takes part in the production of space, landscape, and memory. The video installation showed offices where the reconstruction was planned and designed, one of the rebuilt houses itself, as well as a hall where Hezbollah sympathizers regularly gather to attend video addresses by party leader Hassan Nasrallah. What does it mean when new buildings are meant to be added without rupture or break into the existing urban structure and into individual memories? How has the interpretation of resistance by Hezbollah become a dominant project that is manifest spatially? What does construction mean if it leaves no room for ruins and commemoration because it thinks in a logic of brief intervals of warlessness?

Technical Director: Ayman Nahle

The installation was made possible thanks to funding from the Goethe-Institut Lebanon and the Heinrich-Böll Stiftung Middle East.

On September 26, 2019, a diverse crowd of about 250 people descended upon UMAM D&R's The Hangar for the first solo exhibition by Sandra Schäfer in Lebanon. "Haret Hreik – Mleeta: (Re)Constructed Uncertainties" was the result of extensive research by the German artist from 2014-2016 about the intersections of architecture, geopolitical spaces, and propaganda in Lebanon. The exhibition consisted of two video installations and 22 poster-fragments with which Schäfer appropriated stills from a film by the Waad Project, a massive reconstruction program in Haret Hreik after the July war of 2006.

Partnering with the Goethe-Institut and the Heinrich-Böll Stiftung, UMAM D&R and Schäfer were able to bring the installations back to the neighborhood where part of the filming had taken place. Due to the national uprising that erupted on October 17, 2019, and the ensuing cultural strike by a number of organizations, including UMAM D&R, the exhibition was forced into a premature ending. Nonetheless, it was wildly successful and extremely well visited during the time it was open.

"Mleeta" (2016) was filmed and staged on location at the Museum of Resistance in Lebanon. During the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon (1982-2000), Mleeta Mountain stood right in the middle of the occupied zone. Thirty-five kilometers from Israel to the south and forty kilometers from Syria to the east, the mountain served as a haven for Hezbollah fighters, making it the site of real battles as well. The summit of Mleeta is now home to the Museum of Resistance, a propagandistic re-enactment that reproduces scenic and military scenarios. Set up in the style of a theme park, visitors assume the role of both observer and performer. An auditorium screens lavishly-produced films that dramatically tell the history of the past battles, while guns and other weapons are integrated into the museum’s architecture. Schäfer's installation explored this theme park’s script with its perspectives, stagings, and narratives, focusing on the creation of affective perception. The artist intervened into the staged setting through staged gestures, artificial audio recordings, and camera framings.

"Constructed Futures: Haret Hreik" (2017) was a video installation about the Shiite dominated neighborhood Haret Hreik in Beirut that houses the headquarters of the Hezbollah Party, which invisible to the outside. In 2006, the Israeli Army bombarded the neighborhood and Hezbollah quickly rebuilt it. This rebuilding project was part of a military conflict and a geopolitical network in which architecture takes part in the production of space, landscape, and memory. The video installation showed offices where the reconstruction was planned and designed, one of the rebuilt houses itself, as well as a hall where Hezbollah sympathizers regularly gather to attend video addresses by party leader Hassan Nasrallah. What does it mean when new buildings are meant to be added without rupture or break into the existing urban structure and into individual memories? How has the interpretation of resistance by Hezbollah become a dominant project that is manifest spatially? What does construction mean if it leaves no room for ruins and commemoration because it thinks in a logic of brief intervals of warlessness?

Technical Director: Ayman Nahle

The installation was made possible thanks to funding from the Goethe-Institut Lebanon and the Heinrich-Böll Stiftung Middle East.