Art against erasure: A Palestinian sculptor and a Lebanese painter on war, exile and memory

The large studios of Abdul Rahman Katanani and Ayman Baalbaki are filled with canvases and installations about memory and destruction, drawn from the Israeli wars that shaped both artists’ youth.

These magical spaces, one in an anonymous building in busy central Beirut, and the other far from the city in a village high in the hills, speak for Lebanon and Palestine.

They also define the two artists and their families.

Katanani’s materials are barbed wire, corrugated metal sheets, olive branches, petroleum barrels and discarded clothes from his birthplace, the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp.

“I’ve always wanted to use the materials of the camp. These materials are our shadows. No... they’re us,” he told Middle East Eye.