The phone rings at 7:30 AM, a mistake… I try to sleep, I get up. The city outside awaits me; it’s Sunday, an unreal calm. I take a taxi to the Jeitaqui neighborhood to go to the Kahraba Collective. I am here today; I must draw. There are four Italians and four Lebanese: Jana Traboulisi, Barrack Rima, Gianluca Costantini, Fadi Adleh, Allegra Corbo, Hala Dabaji, Vito Manolo Roma. My Lebanese partner is Barrack Rima, born in Tripoli, Lebanon, but living in Brussels. I don’t speak English, but after a brief moment of hesitation, we understand each other well. I suggest drawing simultaneously on the same sheet; he agrees. He proposes we walk the streets and draw; I’m in.
- Drawing
Sitting on the ground, we draw a semi-destroyed house; there are still holes in the walls from the civil war. It works; we draw in the same way; we are the same hand.
2. Drawing
A gas station with a tree in the center; the gas station attendant comes over, curious.
3. Drawing
We go to the port. The first drawing is of a truck parking lot; I like the drawing, but Barrack does not.
4. Drawing
A great view of the port, hundreds of containers and numerous cranes, with the sea on the horizon. The sun hits our faces, and the flies annoy us.
We return to the Kahraba Collective, taking many photos along the way. The most interesting one is this:
“A comic-style graffiti, the author seems to be called Obéz. In the studio, everyone is working; it’s very hot, and I’m sweating a lot. Barrack and I look at the drawings and after a while decide to go out again.
5. Drawing
We call it ‘Devils Tower,’ with exaggerated perspective. An architectural delirium.”
6. Drawing
Sitting in a very dusty parking lot, we draw a beautiful house from which the music of a piano comes. Surrounding it are menacing skyscrapers.
7. Drawing
180° of view, a wreck of a Mercedes Taxi.
There is a lot of peace.
We return to the others and work on the drawings with diluted black ink and Photoshop montages; these are the final drawings, and the last one is the one chosen for publication.
