I STAY, I RESIST
Beirut, Lebanon. A few days after the fragile ceasefire, a hint of life seems to have returned to inhabit the streets: but life, among the veins of the capital, has never stopped flowing, not even during the two months of indiscriminate Israeli bombing. The media representation of the war between Israel and Hezbollah has given the West an image of Beirut devastated by bombing, reducing entire neighborhoods to piles of rubble, which remain deserted today; other areas, however, are full of displaced people who find refuge wherever they can, even in the streets and along the seafront.
The media coverage from various correspondents in the field focused on the front lines and war scenes, providing an incomplete narrative of this historical moment, thus risking concealing the other-human face of a city that, still in disbelief of the peace so laboriously achieved, has instead been accustomed to war, or has had to adjust quickly, finding tools of resistance in daily life, in the apparently simple act of staying and continuing to live. Through the voices of women, youth, children, and the elderly; volunteers, journalists, and restaurateurs; passing from overcrowded markets to empty clubs, from schools turned into shelters to the hectic corridors of a hospital; from the nostalgia of Lebanon’s golden age to the innocence of children in a Palestinian refugee camp, to the serene, yet conscious acceptance of the surrounding turmoil by a man smoking shisha on the beach, the project has collected the human stories of fourteen people two months after the start of the latest escalation of violence impacting Lebanon, involving the capital. It attempts to fill an information gap and present a more varied image of the plural, diverse faces that Beirut embodies, despite the war.
Circumstances in which a photograph was taken:
Almost all the photos were taken with a tripod and flash. When there was someone around I asked them to hold the flash for me, otherwise I would shoot the self-timer and run to keep the flash myself. Subjects portrayed chose the pose they preferred, when needed I only asked them to turn slightly towards the light.
Find out more:
Website: alessiocassaro-photo.com/
Instagram: @alessiocassaro