The Atlas Group

The group attempts to research and document a contemporary history of Lebanon and in turn to perform this archive in certain ways.  While researching and documenting historical information, the group also produces audio, visual and literary artefacts that reveal a contemporary history of Lebanon.

“the project runs a convoluted line between fact and fiction, replacing unitary power with fragmented assemblage” (Mark Beasley, Frieze, March 2006)

The work pulls us towards the contradictions within historical records and subverts what Foucault would call ‘meta narratives’ created by traditional historicism. They do so in part through the use of fictional characters of many forms. These characters are used to highlight conflicts within historical narratives. The Fadl Fakhouri File documents 226 notebooks of a fictional historian, said to hold written evidence taken from a fictive car bombing investigation.

http://www.theatlasgroup.org/data/TypeA.html

"Secrets in the open sea" : twenty-nine photographic prints that were found buried under rubble in the commercial districts of Beirut in the 1993 demolition. These are large monochrome blue prints with a small b/w picture in the corner. It is said that once taken to a laboratory it was discovered that portraits could be found underneath the blue images. It is unclear whether this is presented as fact or fiction but the photographs represent a rupture or discontinuity that has been found through research and archaeology.