Ansar
- AboutAnsar, 2007
Part 5 of Khiam project
Video and photo installation
Photographic timeline, lambda print, Dibond finish (300 x 15cm)
Super 8 film, dating from 1985 and filmed in 2007, converted to DVD During the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon, several detention camps were established by the Israeli military and its proxy Lebanese militia, the South Lebanon Army, to incarcerate thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians. - Other Installations
One of them, Ansar, opened in 1982 and closed in 1985. The Khiam prison camp that was the subject of Hadjithomas and Joreige’s installation and film, titled Khiam 2000-2007, opened shortly after. In the second half of the film, Khiam 2000-2007, when asked how to maintain a trace of Khiam prison after its destruction, a number of ex-prisoners allude to the absence of traces and outright oblivion, evoking the fate of the Ansar prison camp.
Today, at the former site of the Ansar prison camp stands a restaurant, a theme park, a football field, a women’s pool, and even a zoo. There is nothing to the right or left of the confines of the former prison, as if these entertainment sites had been firmly implanted by the Lebanese to erase all traces of the camp.
Beyond this façade is a scout camp, with tents set up among the remains of the Israeli occupation. The artists visited the campsite to film the surviving traces linked to the history of the Ansar camp. At the site, the artists produced a Super 8 video which contains odd images, blurring the notions of documentary and time and creating strange intervals. The resulting video and photography installation titled Ansar Recto/Verso questions the making of history when traces have vanished. In a context where traces of history are erased, what is a monument? What is an archive, a document, an image, an imaginary?
WatchAnsar Panoramic Image
