Lebanon: Arts and Artists · Global Voices
Moussa Bashir

The Lebanese blogosphere is not solely composed of political blogs you know, and thank God for that. Some artists are using blogs to display their paintings, music and other artistic creations. Here is a sample. First the drawings and paintings, then the music and the films. Enjoy.
Suzanne Alaywan has a few new additions to her artwork posted on her blog. Among them is this one which is captioned “collage of a photograph and drawing”. It brings life and hope to an old shut window.
Mazen Kerbaj posted many new drawings this month. This one entitled “boom” tells the story of Evan’s experience with an explosion – one of many terrorist attacks that have punctuated our days and weeks recently in Lebanon.
He adds this English translation to the Arabic text in his drawing.
19 september 2007
5.30 PM
i am watching tv
suddenly
the electricity is cut
and
the building moved
and then
BOOM
500 meters from the house
Evan's face
Evan's voice
…
and Evan's questions
– what is this sound?
– what is this smoke?
– what happened?
when?
why?
how?
and after 30 minutes
everything went back to normal
and in the evening, a new question:
– why there is no school tomorrow?
Maroun Kassab returns with some of his new paintings which make up part of an exhibition. This one below is entitled “Intuition” and is an oil on canvas. It speaks for itself.
Below is one of many new and interesting drawings by Laure Ghourayeb. She calls this one “l’autre” or “the other”. This artistic creation also speaks for itself.
Ibn Bint Jbeil wrote about a thematic exhibit in which he participated. The theme was “Journeys & Distances” and it focused on the concept of people who are in a constant state of travel.
He explains the paintings by saying:
Initially these images are intangible and not formed, and so the exploration of these images is an exploration of that which is elusive and pliable. Thus the paintings become abstractions of home and land.
Music can also be heard in the blogosphere. Ziad El Ahmadie is a Lebanese composer who maintains this blog where visitors can listen to some of his musical composition from his first CD “Bilbel”, in addition to a musical video.
Finally there is the Lebanese Films blog in which the author, Lebanese, discusses his/her personal opinions on the Lebanese films industry. In the latest post, the writer discusses the movie “S. L. Film”, which is a comedy based on the once popular TV show “S. L. Shi”.