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Mari Meen Halsøy
Beirut: the capital city of Lebanon, where for 15 years, from 1975 to 1990, different
factions bombed and shot each other to pieces. Beirut: a city once described as one
of the most architecturally beautiful in the world, its elegant buildings shattered by
war.
In 2010 the Norwegian artist Mari Meen Halsøy came to Beirut to take part in the
Beirut Street Festival. Back home in Norway she had been creating interventions in
the built environment, weaving understated tapestries for small, overlooked and/or
neglected spaces. Perhaps a brick had been removed in a wall or the pavement, and
she would insert the tapestry in such a way that it almost disappeared unless you
knew it was there. As she says: "It is about the discovery of beauty in unexpected
places; little secrets, traces of people, marks of history. People passing by find a
minor, unexpected detail that awakens them from their automatic transport from one
place to another. It is a message from an unknown messenger."
In Beirut she witnessed a very different urban landscape, not neglected but ruined.
She was surrounded by broken buildings, blasted by holes of one kind or another,
representing all too clearly violence and death, rather than a lack of awareness of
our surroundings. She was asked by the festival organisers to 'patch all waking
moments'. And that is what she began to do, taking her loom into the buildings,
sitting, looking, feeling, drawing around bomb and bullet holes, weaving tapestries to
the exact shape, then placing them in the holes, but not covering, so that the
ravaged edges could still be seen. The soft textile tapestries became the healing
dressing for the physical wounds of the building. Colours were chosen to be close to
the colour of the wall, not as camouflage but in order to empathise with the broken
surface and structure.
The following year she was invited back with the Norwegian choreographers and
dancers Sara Christophersen and Helle Siljeholm and together they created 'A
Perfectly Safe Space' performance and installation in an iconic Beirut building: the
Barakat Building, also known as Beit Beirut (the House of Beirut). The house, now a
ruined shell, had been built for the wealthy Barakat family almost 100 years before,
and had represented a perfect example of Beirut architecture. It is situated alongside
what came to be known during the years of war as 'the green line' - a no-man's land
between east and west, between Christian and Muslim, along which nature
flourished, providing a green line of shrubs and bushes. The ironic and painful
symbolism is hard to ignore. The closeness of the house to the green line, with its
almost 360 degree viewing advantage meant that the house became home to
snipers who could pick people off in all directions. Again Mari Meen Halsøy
responded, on site, by weaving her tapestries to fit the wounds in the walls. Are they
akin to skin grafts? Membrane on membrane?
And she has been doing this ever since, running workshops, interviewing those who
lived through the war, working with the Lebanese artist, writer and activist Zeina El
Khalil. She supports her work in Beirut by returning back to Norway at times during
the year to undertake residencies and organise artist-led community projects. Her
commitment is remarkable, but still there is a nagging question founded in the
unease generated by someone making art about the suffering of others. When asked
about this she is silent for several moments before answering. She then speaks
about the act of weaving, the time it takes, of weaving in the place, of listening, as
each line is woven, to the memories of those who lived in the place. She repeats,
much as the process of weaving is one of repetition: of sitting in that place, thinking
about that place while weaving for that place. And I am convinced.
The Motown group The Temptations in 1970, and Bruce Springsteen in 1984, sang:
'War.
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing.'
Few would disagree. Yet the act of war seems embedded in the human condition.
And now the spotlight is again on Lebanon as millions of Syrian refugees pour in to
this country that is roughly the size of Devon and Cornwall in the UK. The ruined
buildings of Beirut are again housing those sheltering from the bullets and bombs.
But maybe, just maybe, Mari Meen Halsøy offers us hope through a compassionate
materialisation of survival. She has written that: "'Wounds' focuses on the long-term,
negative consequences of conflicts that lead to war. At the same time, the tapestries
express human endurance and the will to go forward. Powerlessness is replaced by
painstaking rebuilding." Tapestries have traditionally told the stories of their time and
Mari Meen Halsøy is undoubtedly doing just that with honesty, courage and integrity.
Lesley Millar. May 2018
Note: Mari Meen Halsøy's installation 'Sniper's Room' is included in the
exhibition 'Weaving New Worlds' at the William Morris Gallery London,
16 June - 23 September 2018