Visual artist Magda Chaaban seeks to instill hope and inspire people to see Lebanon’s capital Beirut through her eyes during these trying times.
Chaaban is a Lebanese-American painter, sculptor, and author. She told Al Arabiya English in an interview that art was very important to Lebanese society. Aside from being a vessel for driving change, art depicts history in a way that history book cannot, she said.
“It is a communication through images and colors, which maybe brings some hope for people. It preserves what historical records cannot, like for example, a story behind a painting can describe how it felt to exist in a particular place at a particular time, it’s like writing history.”
She continued, “I see that this is much more important for generations later when they see art during this period of time, maybe they can understand much better than [if they] read a history book about what happened at that moment in time.”
