dia mrad: if these walls could talk

dia mrad, a lebanese artist with a proclivity for documenting the built environment, burst onto the international scene with his beautifully haunting series of images depicting the beirut port silos, following the devastating explosion on august 4th, 2020. since then, his work continues to derive a deep sense of humanity and emotional insight from the urban fabric, revealing secrets of city walls’ past and present, with the hopes that they guide us toward a better future.

interview by ralph arida

how would you describe your work?

i like to describe my work as image-making, whether through photography, textiles or found objects. it is a personal experience that can stretch over to include other people's experiences, but it is always seen from my perspective as an incomplete narrative where viewers can fill in the blanks.

your master’s in architecture is visibly a great influence on your work. how did you transition from architect to artist?

when i was attending my bachelor’s degree in architecture, we would start every design project with an urban analysis of the site. i would go down with my camera and interview people to add context to our designs. it helped me get a better understanding of the city, which is something that i have been interested in doing since high school. beirut is an enigmatic place, filled with chaos, an organized chaos, and i wanted to make sense of it. come graduation, i was more interested in understanding what is already out there and focusing on the already built environment through image-making. soon after graduating, i started an archiving project. it was about taking photos of all the classified traditional houses in beirut. i felt like they were in danger of disappearing without being well documented or appreciated enough. everything took off from there. it was no longer just about the scientific aspect. it was about telling a certain story that was unfolding in real time.

many architects dabble in art; mondrian comes to mind. why do you think that is the case?

very rarely do architects study and become architects. they usually end up somewhere completely different. architecture teaches us how to express something visually. it starts as an idea, which is essentially what art is. we learn to express a point of view through the construction of something, whether that is a dress, an image, or a building. i think that is why most architecture students eventually branch off and explore different mediums.

your photographs have an archival touch, as though memorializing a city whose beauty has long been overlooked. in your opinion, why is it important to archive lebanese architecture and infrastructure?

my interest in archiving began with the constant hearing of what beirut was like before the war, during the 60s and 70s. my generation hears so much about it and is inspired by the idea of what beirut was like without ever having a clear visual explanation at their disposal. we have snippets here and there, as well as a few books and articles, but there is no comprehensive archive that really explains beirut, and why people are so obsessed with this city. in other words, the need to archive lebanese architecture and infrastructure comes from being exposed to a lot of change and transformation, wanting to make sense of it and understand it, but also to safeguard it for the future.

if these facades could talk, what would they say?

i always look at buildings as silent witnesses. bullet holes on a building or a freshly painted facade express something specific without speaking. i look at the city as a history book. when put together in a certain way, all of these buildings, elements, and components of the built environment tell us what happened before, and what is happening right now. if they were to speak, they would say: “i exist. i am still here.”

lebanon is a mosaic of different architectural styles. which is your favorite to photograph?

traditional lebanese houses. i have a strong emotional attachment to them. the majority of my teenage years experiences that had truly impacted me, happened within the comfort and safety of a traditional lebanese house. there were many firsts associated with these spaces, whether it was my first drink in a traditional house in gemmayzeh, that was adapted into a pub, my first kiss, or my first time seeing an art exhibition. these buildings have a certain attraction and functions that allow us to have these life experiences.

since you have changed majors from architecture to photography, is there any other artistic medium you would be curious to explore next?

last year, i started printing patterns on construction material, which introduced me to the idea of being able to work on different mediums. i also did another project, an installation, where i collected delivery packages for three months to narrate my experience in paris. these projects took me back to image-making beyond a certain medium and showed me that the medium can become the message. lately, i have been interested in image-making stemming from construction or demolition debris.

beirut has been destroyed and rebuilt numerous times throughout history. the most recent emblem of that is the beirut port silos following the devastating explosion on august 4th, 2020. your photographs of them traveled the world. what was the thought behind making such a devastating site look so beautiful?

it definitely wasn’t my original intent. it started off as a freelance project to 3d-scan the silos in order to evaluate how steady the structure was. that is how we discovered that the southern silo would eventually collapse. when i was photographing on site, i was constantly bombarded with messages on social media, asking how they could access the site, which was off-limits to civilians. i decided to transfer my own experience, in images, to the general public. it was a very surreal, emotional, and eye-opening experience, and i let that guide me. my images reflected the general sentiment that these structures absorbed the aftershock of the explosion and a lot of the damage that could have been inflicted on beirut’s urban environment. i found myself thankful and appreciative of these structures and their scale. i tried to convey those feelings through the visuals. i think many people, particularly the lebanese population, can relate to them.

"the need to archive lebanese architecture and infrastructure comes from being exposed to a lot of change and transformation, wanting to make sense of it and understand it, but also to safeguard it for the future."

those photographs became art pieces in demand around the world. how did that come to be?

i started looking at spaces to exhibit these images based on a growing demand from people on social media to have access to them. these images carried much more value for people than i expected, which filled me with a sense of responsibility to share them. it slowly developed from a small exhibition to a much bigger one. i printed the pictures on a bigger scale so people could interact and engage with them further. soon enough, they transcended their function and became artworks that were viewed with so much emotion. on a personal level, that exhibition was the first time i truly processed the tragedy. it was the first time i cried since the explosion. it was a very transformative event. my life, what i do and who i spend my time with, basically changed ever since.

how has surviving august 4th impacted your work and process as an artist?

i was on my vespa in mar mikhael doing some work. when the explosion happened, i was thrown off my bike, and my first thought was that we were being bombed, and that this would be my end. i figured if we were getting bombed, my sd card might survive, even if i didn’t. i decided to take as many images as possible to document and gather evidence of what was happening, as if it was the last thing i would leave behind. that was the beginning of my understanding of how much the built environment had to say about social, political and economic issues, and how my own experience could complement and further inform those issues. today, i feel a certain responsibility to document and raise awareness on various issues through the built environment.

you were born and raised in lebanon. how would you describe your relationship with your country of birth?

my relationship with lebanon is a bit complex. i never felt that infamous love-hate relationship people talk about, because i never understood the hate part. I am aware of why it could be hated, but personally, i always kept a romanticized idea of what lebanon is or can be in the future. i just want to keep living that fantasy of a utopic future for lebanon, with the hopes of eventually convincing myself that this fantasy is real.

the arab art scene is making a big mark on the world. to what do you attribute such a meteoric rise?

a lot of it has to do with competition between different arab countries to become the regional art hub, namely lebanon, the uae, and saudi arabia, which i am thankful for. it ignited a global trend around arab art. also, the arab world constantly faces big conflicts that impact the world, while in parallel, progressing and developing at a pace unmatched in history. i think art is the best way to make sense of it all, whether you are part of the arab world or not.

saudi arabia and the uae have adopted a futuristic and magnanimous approach to architecture, even going as far as building entire cities “of the future”. what is your take on that?

these countries, namely saudi arabia, are developing and heading towards the future through rapid change. the built environment has to reflect that, whether we like it or not, and foster new social norms and cultural activities that are being introduced to society.