When she returned to Lebanon in 2015 after spending several years abroad, Marie-Noëlle Fattal set off every weekend to explore the various districts of Beirut on foot. Her way of reconnecting with this city to which she has always been attached, which has always inspired her, even from afar, she confides.
Her smartphone in hand, she spontaneously began photographing people, buildings and even small Beirut street scenes. A shoe-shine worker on a corner of the sidewalk, a gathering of hookah smokers on the doorstep of a shop, bougainvilleas in bloom in an abandoned garden, stalls and old facades still escaped from bulldozers … In short, she immortalizes everything that touches her, impresses her, makes her smile …
“Hallaa ‘el-Chabeb”, the barber for young men, photo taken by Marie-Noëlle Fattal in January 2019. Photo DR
Her gaze filled with tender curiosity towards this city and its inhabitants, the young woman thus accumulates, during her Sunday walks, the snapshots of life in Beirut. Images that are always positive and full of vitality, despite the touch of nostalgia that often emerges. Because it is towards the old sectors that have still remained authentic that her steps invariably lead her (ra). These Zokak el-Blat, Hamra, Gemmayzé, and especially the perimeter of Mar Mikhaël, which she walks tirelessly. Attracted by their architectural harmony which is still relatively preserved, coupled with a certain social, cultural and generational mix which gives it its particular charm, both contemporary and obsolete, she wants to keep track of it before it is too late.
To this end, Marie-Noëlle Fattal created, in March 2015, Beirut Foosteps, an Instagram account on which she shares her photos of the nooks and crannies of this capital that she never tires of discovering with as much passion as ever.
Her images taken using a simple cell phone, but with a sensitivity that springs straight from the heart, often with a touch of humor, speak to all those who like her are sensitive to a certain facet of Lebanon and its capital. : true, vibrant, colorful and always positive despite all its ills. Today, they have earned her nearly 12,000 followers who see in her the official photographer of Beirut of small daily pleasures.
Marie-Noëlle Fattal, photographer of the real Beirut. Photo DR
The year that broke his fears …
And then comes the year 2020. The year of all misfortunes, of all challenges too. “This year, which was horrible for me as for everyone, will, on the other hand, have shattered all my fears,” she confides. First, that of daring to cross the reassuring framework of the Instagram thread to embark on the exhibition circuit for the first time. What she dreaded, not being a professional photographer. But then, during the period of confinement, having finally equipped herself with a “real big camera”, she had dressed up her weapons, practicing in particular taking photos indoors. Last July, equipped with her new digital camera, she climbed to the 12th floor of a building located behind the stairs of the old Vendôme cinema, in Mar Mikhaël, with a bird’s eye view of the surrounding perimeter, all in maze of alleys and decayed buildings. She settles there daily and, focusing her lens on the inhabitants of these old neighborhoods where life does not flow peacefully – this is never the case in Lebanon – but in a proximity of neighborhood where destitution and human warmth go hand in hand, it captures the “fleeting” moments of happiness that punctuate their everyday life. This woman who smokes at her window, this man who has made the terrace of his dilapidated house his garden of Eden or this old man leaning over the geraniums on his balcony with an almost perceptible love … So many anonymous faces that tell, without pathos , the precariousness of life in this city that some prefer to show smooth, party girl, bling-bling or bruised… but never in its intimate truth.
This series of intimate photos taken during the month of July 2020 and quite simply called the 12th Floor (12th floor) forms the central core of the exhibition that Marie-Noëlle Fattal presents at BEYt until January 3, 2021. In this former residence by Mar Mikhaël, with the stigmata of August 4 already sealed, an ideal setting for her artistic purpose, she has also brought together under the title “Ephemeral” three other series of her photos taken over the past three years.
The first, and the oldest, Waiting, is as its name suggests centered around those empty chairs that we often see in the streets, on the edges of the sidewalks, alone, waiting for a moment or a conversation, broken or forgotten. They are the symbol, according to the artist, “of the empty chairs of a country without a State”. The second, Free Walls, focuses on the city walls re-appropriated by its artists. And the third, Of Dogs and Humans, which, while crossing the thaoura and surreptitiously evoking the pandemic, captures attitudes and looks as expressive in some passers-by as in their faithful four-legged companions.
Only images from before the collective trauma of August 4, “absolutely non-photographable”, says the looper in love with Beirut, who beyond this terrible shock has decided “to set out again towards something positive”. And to lead visitors to the exhibition in his wake.
It remains to be noted that all sales will be donated to the Marion Hochar Fund which helps women microentrepreneurs to rebuild their businesses and small industries destroyed by the explosion in the port on August 4.
“Éphémères” by Marie-Noëlle Fattal; BEYt Mar Mikhaël. Until January 3, 2021, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
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When she returned to Lebanon in 2015 after spending several years abroad, Marie-Noëlle Fattal set off every weekend to explore the various districts of Beirut on foot. Her way of reconnecting with this city to which she has always been attached, which has always inspired her, even from afar, she confides. With her smartphone in hand, she …
