Andy Warhol in a War Zone
by Carole Corm

All images © Christian Catafago and Samer Mohdad

In the fall of last year, I was fortunate enough to participate in a book of texts and photographs on the displaced Druze and Christian communities of Mount Lebanon. The project, whose aim was no less than to ‘reinforce civil society in Lebanon’ was an artistic endeavor funded by the European Union.

While driving up and down what stands as the historic core of Lebanon, my colleagues and I were stunned to fall upon deserted houses scattered across the mountain, usually in strategic points, which had once been occupied by refugees before being seized by the Syrian army. Each house had a myriad of layers to read from: it had a specific history, bore the traces of heavy artillery, and yet kept some curious remains from better days.

More than a year after the official withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon, most of these houses still stand as palimpsests to the recent history of this small Middle Eastern country. They prove the point- through architecture and urbanism- that nothing has yet been cleared away and by extension, resolved. Instead, people prefer to build next to the old.

Political remarks asides, it would seem the last occupants, namely, Syrian soldiers, had much time to spare as they meticulously wrote slogans on the walls – particularly the ceilings - and wallpapered these otherwise vacant buildings with foil paper made from the packaging of random household items such as shampoo and liquid soap.

Damascus Road
Whoever wants to enter or exit the mountain must use this road. Its importance and symbolism was such that it actually became a no-man’s land that divided the country and capital during the war.

No one could have imagined what was happening inside a big villa situated on the road that goes down to Beirut, a little bit after the town of Aley. People say a sculptress who passed away during the war with no children or heirs to take over the house used to live there. It was ultimately taken over by a militia and used as an interrogation center. On the inside walls, large inscriptions are painted in red:

________ __ __ ___ (provide blood in war)
_____ __ _____(exaltation through physical effort)
_____(the example to follow
_____(hope)

Just as incredible is the life around the building. Billboards advertise Kentucky Fried Chicken, furniture stores, and soft drinks. There’s a constant flow of cars going up and down the hillside.

Interiors
As with formerly occupied territories, there is a typology of formerly occupied buildings. In the region around Aley, buildings were mostly taken over from the first wave of refugees who had fled to the mountain when the bombs were hitting Beirut. If the exteriors seem rather banal, the interiors are rich in detail revealing part of the story of each of their inhabitants: the bathrooms tiles, the wallpaper, the light smudge left on the wall where a dish washer or a washing machine use to be stored.

The objects left by the military remind me of a modern art installation: Each object, brick, crate or fruit juice carton seems to have been left there for a reason. The place is dirty and dark, the living conditions insalubrious. There are no toilets; shit and toilet paper lie on the ground. The filth is everywhere.

The Wallpaper
The walls are insulated with a kind of shiny foil paper made from the packing of random household items such as shampoo and liquid soap. The repetition of the same paper, with its psychedelic colors and its absurd product logos gives a pop art effect to the room. Andy Warhol in a war zone.

It comes as a surprise to find another room, plastered with a Laura Ashley-esque wallpaper. The salmon pink paper was hastily stuck. Who lived in this room? Civilians or soldiers? When was the wallpaper put up?

The Ceilings
The ceilings are a different thing all together. They are the only walls which aren't covered with foil. Instead, there are lines and lines of Arabic script painted in black. Text and text and text. Was there nothing else to write on?

The Gym
There is of course no gym, although we did see a pair of gymnastic rings that seemed to have been brought back from the Soviet Union circa 1950. But weights were everywhere. Soldiers must have used them to build muscle and pass time.

How to build your own weights on a very low budget.
Take two canned boxes of powdered milk, preferably from the Nido brand (Nestlé). Prepare some cement to fill the boxes. Look for a sturdy iron rod. Insert the rod into the boxes while the cement is still moist…. Voila!

The Corridors
The long dark corridors evoke a sinister world of misery and torture. We were hoping to find documents and file cabinets, but everything was emptied out. No archives, no official papers: this was a bit of a disappointment.

The choice of images
A lot of women are drawn on the walls. They are sometimes shown naked and other times in portrait. The drawings are rarely vulgar. The women smile with their big oriental eyes.

As the mountain remains a contested territory, it's common to find each militia marking its territory with political graffiti. The propaganda imagery – landing parachutists, flags blowing in the wind, portraits of various military leaders – is almost cartoonish. It’s all very Cold War. Many empty buildings straddle either side of the road. A train station dating from the Mandate is still standing in ruin. Behind the hill, the big hotels of Aley are covered with large posters advertising diamond-studded jewelry to Saudi tourists.

Mount Lebanon is an interesting contested territory to study. Unlike the neighboring conflict in Palestine, there were no big attempts to erase past occupants. Rather, the houses reveal here an absurd collision between two epochs – one of ideology, the other of consumerism - as well as a surprising dose of absurdity, rendered through pop art effects, via the appropriation of everyday symbols, in a context of war, survival and military boredom.

This text was originally written for Mes Ententes, published by Arab Images Foundation, 2005.

Carole Corm is a journalist based in Beirut. Since receiving a MA in Middle East Studies from Harvard University, she has written for The New York Times, Canvas, and Al Jadid among other newspapers and magazines. She currently heads the cultural pages of TimeOut Beirut and Elle Magazine.