I’ll Race You

Curated by Costantino D’Orazio as part of the show “Hopes and Doubts,” this piece was inspired by the erasure of Beirut’s architectural patrimony by reckless post-Civil War development. Set within a corn kernel-shaped concrete husk that is the last residue of modernist architecture in reconstructed downtown Beirut, Hachem’s work is comprised of a row of six hammers affixed to a single electric motor that draws them back, one by one, to strike the concrete wall of the derelict space. The space is, for the present, still standing.