Aya Haidar - Behind Closed Doors - Bischof/Weiss - London

last chance: through October 6th 2011

In the centre of Martyrs' Square in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, is a statue depicting a woman, one arm bearing a torch aloft, the other around the shoulders of a young boy. The statue is riddled with bullet holes from the wars, uprisings and political unrest that have pockmarked the 69 years of Lebanese independence. A photograph of the landmark crops in on the two figures whose bullet wounds have been carefully, tenderly stitched over in a variety of multi-coloured bandages. Another view shows the woman completely wrapped, Christo-like, in red thread. These interventions by Aya Haidar, on photographs printed on linen (both from the series Seamstress, 2011) illustrate the artist's method of both highlighting and concealing the marginalia normally overlooked in both the images and narratives of the country's troubled past.

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