Shattered but Still Creating: How Beirut’s Artists Turned Tragedy into Timeless Art

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_{On August 4, 2020, Beirut’s heart was torn apart. More than 2,000 tons of ammonium nitrate were carelessly stored in the city’s port, igniting one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history. Over 200 lives were lost and countless more were forever changed.}

_{The city’s vibrant creative scene of painters, photographers and designers was left reeling. Studios crumbled, artworks vanished and grief became the new shared language. Yet, somehow, amidst the glass and dust, art found a way to survive.}

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Echoes of the Blast

_{Photographer Roger Moukarzel still feels the impact in his bones.}

_{“The glass may have been cleared from the ground, but it is still broken inside us, in our hearts, in our memories.”}

_{Painter Tagreed Darghouth calls it an ongoing tragedy, one the Lebanese have grown painfully numb to. In contrast, designer Nada Debs sees in the rubble a reminder of her people’s resilience and their will to keep creating and crafting beauty.}

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Artworks Born from Ruins

_{“Gibran Khalil Gibran” – Dia Mrad
A haunting photograph of Beirut’s destruction is framed by a mural of the famed author peering through shattered walls. His gaze is heavy with sorrow.}

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“Collusion I” – Marwan Sahmarani
_{Once a fierce commentary on government clashes, this massive abstract was literally torn by the blast. Sahmarani painstakingly stitched it back together in a nine-month healing process.}

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_{“Keeping It Together” – Nada Debs
A delicate resin bowl infused with shards of blast glass, sold to fund Lebanon’s artisans. It is a symbol of turning devastation into purpose.}

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_{“Shattered #2” – Roger Moukarzel
A photographic series of blast remnants, each item stark against white and each telling its own fragment of the day’s horror.}

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_{“The Explosion” – Tagreed Darghouth
A raw, swirling oil painting of the silos and smoke that captures the chaos and violence of that moment.}

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More Than Memory

_{Five years later, Beirut’s wounds remain open. No investigation has delivered justice, yet the city’s creative community continues to bear witness through their work. The art does not just remember the explosion. It refuses to let the world forget.}

_{While the glass was swept away, Beirut’s scars still shimmer in the sunlight.}

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