GlobalPrayers
2010/ 2013

Paola Yacoub

Religious Visualization in Urban Space in Beirut

Paola Yacoub studied at the Beirut Academy of Fine Arts and graduated from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London in 1993. She has worked at the Institut Français d’Archéologie du Proche-Orient, where she was in charge of the excavation’s drawings in downtown Beirut from 1995 to 1999. Since 2000, Yacoub collaborates with the artist Michel Lasserre. In 2001 and 2003, they were invited by Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, and in 2004/2005, they were awarded a DAAD artists’ program fellowship. Yacoub has given numerous lectures and workshops at European and American Universities. As Global Prayers – fellow she works together with Joseph Rustom on the project „The Use of Iconography in New Places of Worship in Syria“.

Works by Yacoub have been featured in the exhibitions Stand der Dinge at the Kunst-Werke, Berlin curated by Cathérine David (2000), the biennials at Venice (2000 and 2003), Busan (2004), Gwangju (2006), Biennale (2007), Tirana (2009). She participated in the exhibition Black Stones at the House of World Cultures (2012) and will present there as well her work in the show Between Walls and Windows. Arts and Architecture. A number of public collections are holding works by Yacoub, including FNAC, Paris, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, FRAC Poitoux-Charentes, Centre pour l’Image Contemporaine/Mamco, Geneva, The Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm/New York. Yacoub’s photo essays with Michel Lasserre have been published in the anthology Beirut is a Magnificent City: SynopticPictures (2003).

Religious Visualization in Urban Space in Beirut

Religious visibilities in a city such as Beirut are object of an ongoing, almost daily management by the many different co-existing religious communities and political movements. These visibilities are subject to different strategies linking urban and territorial configurations to the media system, mingling religious, political, military and even the artistic interests. The work describes some of these visible religious territorial devices such as religious community propaganda materials, documents, street posters and video clips. It especially traces the role of urban ostentation and the aura of political and religious actors. These devices are put in relation with the recent history of the city of Beirut and its post-colonial conditions as a persistent state of war. The project is conceived as a film synopsis constituting series of scenes from religious and political life in Beirut.