Shifting Lights, an art, photography and architecture exhibition

An exhibition in Beirut that explores the relationship between painting and photography through the vision of an architect. In “Shifting Lights”, the architect  Rami Saab presents the paintings of the artist Afaf Zurayk and the photographs of Noel Nasr in a physical and emotive dimension.


Shifting Lights is an exhibition by three Lebanese artists representing three disciplines and three generations - the painter Afaf Zurayk (1948-), the photographer Noel Nasr (1978-) and the architect Rami Saab (1991-) and it explores their experiences of turbulence and pain in Lebanon and the region in general. The exhibition plays with the nuanced shifting of darkness, light and transparencies in an attempt to explain the contradictions of a place and of human beings.
It is formed of nine cylindrical pods, each one with a painting inside and enveloped by a photograph on the outside. Visitors move from darkness to light and experience an intimate conversation between painting, photograph, pod and surrounding space. These seemingly translucent structures are like Dante's dark forest where you get lost and at the same time search for your inner self.
The installation in Beirut conceived by the architect Rami Saab is inspired by details recovered from the paintings by Afaf who in turn explores humanity through her portraits. These details, captured by the camera lens of Noel are turned into three-dimensional elements with projects and form the translucent external walls of each cylindrical pod where visitors meander through both physically and emotively. This makes them active participants in a pathway where individual expressions of art are mixed with the perception of the whole. Like in everyday life, in Shifting Lights no two moments are alike: every experience is personal and at the bidding of the light, our mood, our background. As the light shifts, the layers are revealed and give us a valuable clue as to how to live and interpret a turbulent, pain-filled region like Lebanon.

Christiane Bürklein

Shifting Lights exhibition
from 7 December 2017 to 2 January 2018
Beit Beirut (Sodeco, Independence Street, Elias Sarkis Avenue). 
Monday to Saturday from 11 am to 8 pm, Sundays from 12 pm to 6 pm
Imagesi: courtesy of MIRROS Media Communication
Facebook: ShiftingLightsExhibition
Instagram: shiftinglights_exhibition  
#ShiftingLightsLB