elsie
haddad

Entr'actes

Old shops in Beirut on the way of disappearance

Back in the days, neighborhoods in Beirut were full of small shops supplying the diverse needs of its residents, they formed an integral part of the city and its dynamics.

In these neighborhoods, everybody knew everybody by name. The owner’s popular persona made their shops an ideal place for social encounters and human bonding.

That was before the civil war. Fifteen years, followed by a huge wave of construction imposing major changes on the city; the rise of big malls and franchise brands saw these shops struggle to keep up with the needs of the modern consumer, eventually they ended up on the margin of the new city.

With their disappearance, I fear our memories of a certain history will be erased. 

Looking for these places, I found a world somehow suspended between life and death, between past and future.

This is an attempt to retrace fragments of stories on the way the city was once and will never be again.

2010-2011