In a Lebanon museum, 'keys without homes' evoke destruction in south
A Beirut museum exhibition, 'Hkeeli ya Jnoub', preserves the memory of southern Lebanon by featuring pictures and videos of destroyed homes and the keys that once unlocked them. The exhibition includes works by local artists, including 'Keys Without Homes', which showcase…
Intelligence analysis by Llama
A Beirut museum exhibition, 'Hkeeli ya Jnoub', preserves the memory of southern Lebanon by featuring pictures and videos of destroyed homes and the keys that once unlocked them. The exhibition includes works by local artists, including 'Keys Without Homes', which showcases videos of three southerners who kept the keys to their houses, even though they no longer exist.
Imagine you have a key to your home, but your home is destroyed. That's what's happening to people in southern Lebanon. A museum in Beirut is showing pictures and videos of their homes and keys to remember what they lost.
Analysis
A Symbol of Destruction
The exhibition 'Hkeeli ya Jnoub' at the Beit Beirut museum in Lebanon is a poignant reminder of the destruction caused by the ongoing conflict in southern Lebanon. The exhibition features pictures and videos of destroyed homes and the keys that once unlocked them, serving as a powerful symbol of the human cost of the conflict.
The exhibition includes works by local artists, including 'Keys Without Homes', which showcases videos of three southerners who kept the keys to their houses, even though they no longer exist. The artist, Adeeb Farhat, said the idea came to him during the previous war in 2024, when he feared losing his own home. 'I was constantly haunted by the question: What will happen to my house? Will it be bombed? And how will my relationship with my house key change? Will we become the new Palestinians?' he said.
The exhibition also includes an old photograph of the coastal city of Tyre, a black-and-white video of Nabatieh, and notebooks in which visitors wrote down their memories of the south. In another work called 'What Remains', Sama Beydoun, 29 and living in Paris, showed pictures of her grandfather's now-destroyed home in Bint Jbeil, near the border with Israel, which she last saw in 2025.
The exhibition serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving memories and stories of those affected by conflict. It also highlights the human cost of the ongoing conflict in southern Lebanon and the impact it has on the lives of its residents.
Key points
- A Beirut museum exhibition, 'Hkeeli ya Jnoub', preserves the memory of southern Lebanon by featuring pictures and videos of destroyed homes and the keys that once unlocked them.
- The exhibition includes works by local artists, including 'Keys Without Homes', which showcases videos of three southerners who kept the keys to their houses, even though they no longer exist.
- The exhibition serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving memories and stories of those affected by conflict.
- The ongoing conflict in southern Lebanon continues to cause destruction and displacement.
The exhibition 'Hkeeli ya Jnoub' is a step towards preserving the memories and stories of those affected by the conflict in southern Lebanon. It also serves as a reminder of the importance of peace and the need to work towards a resolution to the conflict.
The ongoing conflict in southern Lebanon continues to cause destruction and displacement. The exhibition 'Hkeeli ya Jnoub' highlights the human cost of the conflict and the impact it has on the lives of its residents.
