"Operation 9" was an exhibition by Noël Nasr that used ambiguity and maze-like separation to explore the human costs of war that often get overlooked and forgotten with the passage of time. Nasr, returning to the area where he was born for his first solo show, used photography, slideshows, and objects to strip away the oversaturation that envelopes visuals in today’s society while he reflected upon Lebanon’s civil war. At the beginning of the maze, photographed objects appeared to be raw and random, however, by the end it became clear what they were and how they contributed to a broader story.

In the beginning visitors viewed hanging photographs of items such as a metal-like shard and a beaker with yellow liquid. Then they moved onto a section of 28 images cycling through on PowerPoint, revealing simple pictures of a woman and her child, her wheelchair, scars, and an X-ray of shrapnel lodged in someone’s chest. In the exhibition’s last section, objects, such as the shard, were on display like trophies and allowed the broader picture to become clear.

The woman was severely injured during a round of shelling in 1982 and still has to insert a tube into her abdomen to drain out urine, hence the photograph of a yellow liquid in the first part of the exhibition. She, and many like her, lives with the struggles of war away from the media. While people focus on the oral histories of battle and tales of heroics, people like her move forward in silence, unable to truly put the past behind them. Even after her ninth operation, hence the title of the exhibition, she still carries the tragedies of war.

This installation was made possible thanks to the institutional support from medico international.

"Operation 9" was an exhibition by Noël Nasr that used ambiguity and maze-like separation to explore the human costs of war that often get overlooked and forgotten with the passage of time. Nasr, returning to the area where he was born for his first solo show, used photography, slideshows, and objects to strip away the oversaturation that envelopes visuals in today’s society while he reflected upon Lebanon’s civil war. At the beginning of the maze, photographed objects appeared to be raw and random, however, by the end it became clear what they were and how they contributed to a broader story.

In the beginning visitors viewed hanging photographs of items such as a metal-like shard and a beaker with yellow liquid. Then they moved onto a section of 28 images cycling through on PowerPoint, revealing simple pictures of a woman and her child, her wheelchair, scars, and an X-ray of shrapnel lodged in someone’s chest. In the exhibition’s last section, objects, such as the shard, were on display like trophies and allowed the broader picture to become clear.

The woman was severely injured during a round of shelling in 1982 and still has to insert a tube into her abdomen to drain out urine, hence the photograph of a yellow liquid in the first part of the exhibition. She, and many like her, lives with the struggles of war away from the media. While people focus on the oral histories of battle and tales of heroics, people like her move forward in silence, unable to truly put the past behind them. Even after her ninth operation, hence the title of the exhibition, she still carries the tragedies of war.

This installation was made possible thanks to the institutional support from medico international.