Published in “Vous écrire” – Amers Editions
Preface
Sent regularly from Paris, during two months to someone living nearby in Paris, these photos-texts – in postcard format – by Sirine Fattouh constitute a kind of annotations on daily experiences written for abroad, addressed to persons who have no concrete idea of Lebanon. Perceived precisely from outside, these photos-texts can not mean exactly the same thing, the real living is encapsulated in them being more meaningful to the ones who live in Beirut, walk on the Corniche, or those who have had a similar schooling. But a minimum knowledge, be it through media, is sufficient to understand that at the beginning these postages were an attempt to share events, remembrances, and a memory in which we can find fragments of our own experiences; except (as for me) the omnipresent experience of war, in the background. The texts are sufficiently general, except in some cases, where very specific events are reported – a suicide, the kidnapping of children – and the author remains so vague as for themes and references – except here also in some cases – that the reader or spectator can easily creep into the personal story, which is not tightly knit. Is it strictly biographic? The apposition of the texts on the auto-portraits would let us believe so: it is this young woman who is addressing us, who is speaking of her childhood or of more recent events.
Undoubtedly, it could not be totally an invented life, but it is not impossible that some facts refer to other people, to other places than Beirut, and to other existences, or even that they may have been invented for the occasion. It is not that the narrator wants to entertain us about the war, the fear and anxiety in general, in Lebanon as in anywhere else, but on the contrary, she wants to remind us that all in her life cannot be reduced to a one-voice correspondence between the image and the text. Very often, the text that is attached to a specific image refers to something else, a person or a different situation that we do not see in the photo, which is stuck to it. Many escapes of the meaning appear between the text and the image, the text and what it refers to – does the «you» refer to the family, the close ones, or a defined person – between the reconstruction of the past by the memory or the present attested by the photos? The producer of these photos-texts seems to focus on her own process. She is almost always the subject of what we perceive in images and in words, like the fragments of a personal diary that seem to be messages of anxiety, discouragements, fear, or even of tenacity. Does this biographical dimension carry any importance? Should it be factual to be able to touch us? The imaginary that we can insert beyond the undoubtedly real facts proves that a margin of interpretation has been preserved for the visual and verbal itinerary. Most of the time, it is about elements retracing childhood in times of war, remembered and even replayed by the young woman of the photos. But we are not confronted with a personal, intimate or secret document.
Had it been the case, it would have been impossible to comprehend it. Sentences leave enough space for our subjectivity in a way that allow us to identify with the young woman, and even take her place in a remembered move or action, even though it is not our body which is acting, not our story that is being told and not our History. Sirine Fattouh knows how to integrate us both in her narrative and living experience while creating gaps of difference that puzzle us because of their apparent platitude. Such are the plastic puppet soldiers that we see positioned here or there, on pieces of furniture, posted as traps or in action, however we liked to play war during our childhood, these ones refers us to the real wars almost as an evidence. It is obvious, or too much expected given the context of the totality of the photos-texts. Sirine Fattouh opposes to the quasivoyeuristic expectation in looking at images of war, a narration of her personal story where all should be imagined through the text, which seems to contradict the content of some sentences. Facing the deep seriousness of some events recalled in the texts, she put forward a small local imagery without ambition, inoffensive, and which is not up to the level of symbolism of the said events. Through this deceiving character of the image and the texts which have on purpose no plastic or formal grandiosity, we are lead in this manner and though simple ways, to the void of no representation. Is this not another platitude? Especially when the narrator has called upon events and facts discreetly. Yet, having been able to find in here a form, these narration and images, these memories and experiences are not void, even though their representation is immeasurable to their meaning.
Preface
Sent regularly from Paris, during two months to someone living nearby in Paris, these photos-texts – in postcard format – by Sirine Fattouh constitute a kind of annotations on daily experiences written for abroad, addressed to persons who have no concrete idea of Lebanon. Perceived precisely from outside, these photos-texts can not mean exactly the same thing, the real living is encapsulated in them being more meaningful to the ones who live in Beirut, walk on the Corniche, or those who have had a similar schooling. But a minimum knowledge, be it through media, is sufficient to understand that at the beginning these postages were an attempt to share events, remembrances, and a memory in which we can find fragments of our own experiences; except (as for me) the omnipresent experience of war, in the background. The texts are sufficiently general, except in some cases, where very specific events are reported – a suicide, the kidnapping of children – and the author remains so vague as for themes and references – except here also in some cases – that the reader or spectator can easily creep into the personal story, which is not tightly knit. Is it strictly biographic? The apposition of the texts on the auto-portraits would let us believe so: it is this young woman who is addressing us, who is speaking of her childhood or of more recent events.
Undoubtedly, it could not be totally an invented life, but it is not impossible that some facts refer to other people, to other places than Beirut, and to other existences, or even that they may have been invented for the occasion. It is not that the narrator wants to entertain us about the war, the fear and anxiety in general, in Lebanon as in anywhere else, but on the contrary, she wants to remind us that all in her life cannot be reduced to a one-voice correspondence between the image and the text. Very often, the text that is attached to a specific image refers to something else, a person or a different situation that we do not see in the photo, which is stuck to it. Many escapes of the meaning appear between the text and the image, the text and what it refers to – does the «you» refer to the family, the close ones, or a defined person – between the reconstruction of the past by the memory or the present attested by the photos? The producer of these photos-texts seems to focus on her own process. She is almost always the subject of what we perceive in images and in words, like the fragments of a personal diary that seem to be messages of anxiety, discouragements, fear, or even of tenacity. Does this biographical dimension carry any importance? Should it be factual to be able to touch us? The imaginary that we can insert beyond the undoubtedly real facts proves that a margin of interpretation has been preserved for the visual and verbal itinerary. Most of the time, it is about elements retracing childhood in times of war, remembered and even replayed by the young woman of the photos. But we are not confronted with a personal, intimate or secret document.
Had it been the case, it would have been impossible to comprehend it. Sentences leave enough space for our subjectivity in a way that allow us to identify with the young woman, and even take her place in a remembered move or action, even though it is not our body which is acting, not our story that is being told and not our History. Sirine Fattouh knows how to integrate us both in her narrative and living experience while creating gaps of difference that puzzle us because of their apparent platitude. Such are the plastic puppet soldiers that we see positioned here or there, on pieces of furniture, posted as traps or in action, however we liked to play war during our childhood, these ones refers us to the real wars almost as an evidence. It is obvious, or too much expected given the context of the totality of the photos-texts. Sirine Fattouh opposes to the quasivoyeuristic expectation in looking at images of war, a narration of her personal story where all should be imagined through the text, which seems to contradict the content of some sentences. Facing the deep seriousness of some events recalled in the texts, she put forward a small local imagery without ambition, inoffensive, and which is not up to the level of symbolism of the said events. Through this deceiving character of the image and the texts which have on purpose no plastic or formal grandiosity, we are lead in this manner and though simple ways, to the void of no representation. Is this not another platitude? Especially when the narrator has called upon events and facts discreetly. Yet, having been able to find in here a form, these narration and images, these memories and experiences are not void, even though their representation is immeasurable to their meaning.
