By Jean-Marc Nahas

This installation had been planned prior to the summer war of 2006 to take place in the Hangar. Given the severe damage incurred to the Hangar when the building directly behind UMAM D&R’s premises was bombed and the subsequent instability of the structure, UMAM moved instead to Zico House in what became a cooperative effort.

Catastrophe is the installation of Jean-Marc Nahas, an artist who lived through and participated in the war and who sees his art as part of a commitment to speak out against and end violence. Nahas has been drawing and painting for approximately 20 years and his work engages years of turbulent history in Lebanon. His doesn’t think of his work as having a message but rather as both political and artistic and most of all of addressing the fatal repetition of violence in Lebanon.