3D installation
description of the exhibition
Elias Nafaa thinks of glass as a mutable material. In this installation, it becomes a threshold, one that both distances you from trauma but also, once fractured, immerses you in it. Repurposing the precarious image of a country that is constantly subjected to bombardment and catastrophic explosions, the work transforms weapons of destruction into delicate objects of study.
These three hundred weapons of destruction represent only a tiny fraction of the volume of Israeli military strikes that have been launched in the most recent series of offensive strikes on Lebanon and in occupied Palestinian territories. Between October 7, 2023 and September 4, 2025, the Beirut Urban Lab’s ACLED-based dashboard recorded over eighteen thousand strike events in Lebanon. Each cast represents a real weapon type with its own destructive identity and use. The size of each cast in the installation reflects the actual frequency of use of the respective weapon.
Much like glass can resemble ice, and much like people in Lebanon might, like Nafaa, immigrate to Québec—where, instead of looking out of their window at warfare, they might see a quiet, winter landscape—this work also addresses embodied diasporic experiences of memory, dreams, and transmission.
