The Pillars

The Pillars are brought to life in the archaeological site Museum of Baalbek – a pathway leading to the past. Rechmaoui’s pillars are monuments of their own, each one retracing a narrative depending on the decorative items embedded in the harshness of the concrete. Pillows, owers, glass are integrated in the crumbled architectures, relics of everyday life embodied in the ctional habitats. The artist collected most of the domestics objects and materials from abandoned residential buildings, searching as an archaeologist for the remnants of a war that altered the city’s architecture. These concrete blocks become architectural realities and landmarks to the inhabitants, producing a new landscape, that of a post-war experience. For Rechmaoui, the concrete pillars are ‘time capsules’ re ecting both contemporary violence witnessed in the region as well as his own memory of the Lebanese war.