Khiam 2000 – 2007

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    Khiam 2000-2007, 2000-2007
    Part 2 of Khiam project
  • Until South Lebanon was freed from Israeli occupation in May 2000, it was impossible to enter the Khiam detention camp, situated in an area occupied by the Israeli military and its proxy Lebanese militia, the South Lebanon Army.

    Though much was heard about what happened in the camp, no image of it was ever seen. Sonia, Afif, Soha, Rajae, Kifah and Neeman were imprisoned for more than ten years at the Khiam prison. In the absence of images, the former prisoners speak with Hadjithomas and Joreige and describe in detail how they survived, slept, and dreamt between the four walls of their 180 x 80 cm cells. They discuss their experience of detention, the relation they developed to art as they began secretly making utilitarian and artistic objects in order to resist the camp’s harsh conditions and maintain the humanity that detention camps try to annihilate.

    After it was dismantled in May 2000, Khiam detention camp was turned into a museum. During the 2006 Lebanon War, the site was totally destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. After the war, there was talk of reconstituting it exactly as it was. In 2007, the artists met again with the six former prisoners and discussed the history of the camp, its liberation, its total destruction, and possible reconstruction, as well as the imagination and the power of the image.

    In a two-channel video installation, the interviews produced by the artists in 2000 and then in 2007 are displayed side-by-side.
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