[ad_1]
Seventy paintings of different sizes, which Young began to paint in oil more than a year ago, inside the new bathroom, which the Foundation has recently invested in with the aim of turning it into an exhibition center and cultural meeting place. Before opening his studio in old Sidon, he filled his imagination with stories from the bathroom and its neighbors, to reproduce with his brush. The history of the hammam is like the history of the country. In full bloom of Islamic and Ottoman architecture in large cities, Mustafa Agha Hammoud, of Moroccan origin, built the last baths of ancient Sidon in the early 18th century, combining oriental and Ottoman designs in its corners. Its advantage over previous baths in techniques such as water drag, massage and relaxation. Hammoud, during its construction, sought the help of one of his relatives who was an expert in energy science. But sociocultural considerations were more prominent in the bathroom, which closed its doors in 1949. At the entrance, Young installed a painting of a woman with her hair pulled back under a napkin. It is a re-drawing of a real image of Zahia Al-Zarif, the “teacher” of the bathroom, and the last of its director who used to occupy the male and female sections. His granddaughter, Nadia Al-Ansari, told Leung the story of the strong woman who was considered a tale by everyone in a conservative society that was not used to women mixing with men or with their work. However, Al-Zarif presented a different experience during the 1940s, until the closing of the bathroom, for various reasons, including the arrival of water in homes and the Palestinian Nakba. Young’s paintings document the diverse heritage and social abundance of the city, as its ancient alleys bordered on Christians, Muslims, and Jews, mixing their rituals and beliefs. The ceiling rises from three angles, similar to the Star of David. Their locations were carefully selected to enter the sunlight at specific times. In the center, a dome rises, perforated with small circles and covered with brightly colored glass to illuminate the bathroom in the absence of electricity and lamps. The highlight of the salons is the Jewish pond, in which brides wash themselves as they prepare for the wedding. After washing, the women put bread on their heads before dancing in the open-air lobby around an Ottoman-style fountain. Young reserved a large part of his paintings of women who had stumbled through the bathroom a space of freedom and relaxation that they lost outside of it. In the massage room, Young made the walls convey stories of relaxation. Here, a painting of a woman wrapped part of her body in a towel and stretched out on the tiles with oppressive femininity. There, a series of paintings of a woman’s face slowly enters a state of relaxation.
During his compilation of chapters of collective memory around the new pigeon, Young revived with his paintings the common spaces that brought together the Sidonians before they were lost or deformed. Here, a painting of the Awali river, and there is a painting of children playing on the swings of the Eid sea, and a painting documenting the Israeli bombing of ancient Sidon in 1982, when the pigeons were destroyed. In addition to people’s memory, Young drew his spatial and temporal material and his characters from ancient Sidonia images, some of them from the Sai Sidonia family group and some from the researcher Reem Maktabi.
* Exhibition “Ihya”: until the end of this month – the new bathroom (Old Saida – South Lebanon) For inquiries: 81/282848
Subscribe to «News» on YouTube here
