elsie
haddad

“The Disrupt” started as a documentation of the empty billboards that filled Lebanon, in the wake of the economic collapse that occurred in the fall of 2019.

After Covid19 and the Beirut port explosion in 2020, the country crumbled at a higher pace. The electricity sector collapsed, and power shortages went up to 21 hours per day. It became challenging to process the rapid and violent change imposed on us. 

In response, I began taking portraits of friends, family members, or random people in the city during power cuts. I was interested in the way they were coping, but more so in this moment of void and longing for a normalcy that became further elusive. 

The similitude between the empty billboards and the portraits is mirrored through the diptychs and complex layouts, as a reflection on my country, its landscape and society, in one of its darkest shifting moments.