The end of the 1975-2000 Lebanese war brought a sudden and mainly foreign stability. The years of conflicts are now just holes in walls stuck together by the silent amnesia of a country that has decided to quiet its wounds.

During what is commonly known as the years of the civil war, waves of civilian migrants fleeing their devastated regions sheltered in various blocks of flats, rubble, abandoned apartments and chalets, luxurious villas, hotels and summer houses. The various Lebanese militias and the foreign armies also took over these constructions and turned them into housings or headquarters. Since the civil war ended in 1990, and until the foreign armies recently withdrew from the Lebanese territories (2000 for Israel and 2005 for Syria), most of these places were gradually being returned to their original owners. Despite the reconstruction frenzy that has gripped the country, strongly encouraged by the “postwar” governments, many of these buildings dotted across Lebanon are actually in ruins… They form the remains and traces of the war: scattered holes in the collective memory.

I had the urge to revisit my memories; I entered these wrecks with a need entwined with the fear of returning to places steeped in the past. Stacks of lives awaited in the photographed rooms. Passing through these infinite spaces reveals the adventure and risk of a forced encounter with memory. In the destitution of what remains, repressed secrets rear up: present and imaginary dusts.

These monuments, with their multiple identities and histories, are the documents of memory. Often unnoticed by the Lebanese, they are an integral part of the urban landscape, standing like an abutment of the past against a period both stagnant and present, a reminder of an overhanging war.