On April 10, 2008, under the What Is to Be Done? Lebanon’s War-Loaded Memory initiative, UMAM Documentation & Research launched the "Missing" exhibition to viscerally focus on an aspect of Lebanon’s civil war that is sometimes overlooked and forgotten—the diaspora of disappeared. It has been said that the disappeared are "neither dead or alive." Through the display of photographs of the hundreds of missing individuals, drawn from the gamut of war-era confessions, origins, and political persuasions, the exhibition added a degree of palpability to the painful ambiguity that surrounds the vanished.

After its initial unveiling at the UNESCO Palace in Beirut, the exhibition moved on to Tripoli (December 2008), Saida (February 2009), Marjayoun (July 2009), Deir Al Qamar and Baalbeck (December 2009), and Byblos (June 2010), growing along the way as families approached UMAM D&R to pass along pictures and share the stories of their loved ones who disappeared during the war. 

While other civil war wounds are still viewed and felt by many, often times the issue of those who have vanished into thin air is only observed by the families and loved ones left behind, the people that have been condemned to a purgatory defined by endless waiting: waiting for good news or bad, for the return of their sons or their bodies, for the reports issued by myriad commissions, for official responses, and for recognition, action, and closure.

UMAM D&R believes that in addition to the theoretical debate, it is essential to employ creative approaches that will foster a genuine awareness among the public regarding the magnitude and impact of enforced disappearance on Lebanese society. Although the exhibition only brushed upon the enormity of the issue given that estimates place the number of these disappeared in the thousands, it still gave substance to those who have been plucked from society, ties them to all that is real, both as individuals and as a part of the population of Lebanon that remains missing. With respect to suffering, it is often said that "what is not pictured is not real." Until now, this segment of Lebanese society has indeed become nearly invisible—but it has by no means ceased to exist.

The exhibition was supported by the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development and offers special thanks to the committees of families of the disappeared and all the individuals who provided photographs for the exhibition, including: Committee of the Relatives of the Kidnapped and Missing in Lebanon, Support of the Lebanese in Detention and Exile, and the Committee of the Families of Lebanese Detainees in Syria [represented by Wadad Halwani, Ghazi Aad, and Sonia Eid respectively].