Protest Art Around the World

Lebanon’s Protests and Sculpture

Protesters have returned to the streets en masse in Lebanon as the Lebanese lira looses value and a new government fails to form.

A gathering point has been Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square with its iconic statue. Erected to remember six Lebanese nationalists killed by Ottoman occupiers in 1916, the monument has a long history. It was heavily damaged during the civil war with bullet holes and a missing limb still visible.The bronze figures show a woman holding a torch representing freedom and surrounded by wounded men looking upwards. Now it has been interpreted by a number of artists as Lebanon’s revolution continues

Images (l-r): @miradiab_ Title: Homeland @kibok.art @nouriflayhan @marwanders Image showing the original statue and recent graffiti art.

New sculptures have sprung up besides the Martyrs’ memorial in Beirut. @hayat_nazer_v designed this giant phoenix which is positioned as if about to take flight, arising from ashes.The sculpture is made of the metal remains from tents destroyed by government supporters. Nazer started to build the work on Lebanese Independence Day, and was spontaneously joined by over a hundred volunteers who managed to complete the sculpture in a few hours. As the artist explained to @thenationaluae, she wanted to build a mythical phoenix to show that “we will not burn, we will not break, we will be victorious.”

Images (l-r): @eddychoueiry, @bradytheblack from his Revolution Sketches series @snapdragoninlebanon

Another example of public sculpture to have appeared in Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square is ‘Revolution is a Woman’ by Pierre Abboud. The sculpture shows a woman waving the Lebanese flag, and is made from materials left behind at protest sites such as plastic bottles and cans. It is a nod to the widespread recycling that protesters have carried out in response to the country’s long term waste crises.