Starting Saturday, the artistic elements of Beirut’s first Week of Sound will be making themselves heard.
Founded in France in 2016, the Week of Sound seeks to raise awareness about the effect of noise pollution in cities and on their inhabitants, through a series of artistic interventions and talks.
The Beirut initiative follows UNESCO’s 2017 decision, at the request of Lebanon, France, Argentina and Japan, to adopt Resolution 39 C/49 on “The importance of Sound in Today’s World: Promoting Best Practices.”
Initiated by Lebanon’s UNESCO Ambassador Sahar Baassiri, the project is organized by AUB, USJ, ESA and the Lebanese National Commission for UNESCO. The Beirut edition is themed on the sound of the sea.
“The AUB Neighborhood Initiative, which I’m the director of, is interested in anchoring AUB in Ras Beirut,” Mona el-Hallak told The Daily Star. “We like to activate public space and engage the local community. Though this is about sound, we thought of activating the staircases that historically connected the city to the sea, which exist in Ain al-Mreisseh. “One of them passes through the house of an old fisherman and diver named Ibrahim Najem, who spent his life collecting things from his diving expeditions,” added Hallak, a well-known architect and activist. “One of his findings was the wreckage of a French submarine that was sunk ... in 1941, off the shore of Khaldeh.
“He started getting things out of this submarine, called Le Souffleur, and putting them in his house and he dedicated his life to collecting the history of the sea and the Ain al-Mreisseh area. He turned his house into a museum and named it after the submarine.”
The stairway leads past Najem’s nautical treasure trove to the Ain al-Mreisseh port the only remaining fisherman’s port in the quarter.
Designed by District D, the sound installation “Le Souffleur” has been fitted to the staircase that aims to reconnect this part of the city to the sea through sound. Using a replica of Najem’s gramophone, the installation mixes a composition by Nadim Mishlawi with live-streaming of the sound of the waves and underwater recordings.
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“We wanted to shed light on the importance of the fishermen’s community because they’re not really noticed by people anymore,” Hallak said. “The port on the Corniche is tucked in and the fishermen are really suffering because people don’t come to them to buy fish or take boats to go for trips anymore.
“We decided to reactivate it as a vertical playground where children and adults can play, through sound, by talking to each other with a network of sound pipes,” she explained. “It really builds on the memory of the game of talking through two tins or cups connected by a string. It also tells people that this is a way down to the sea [that] many don’t even know exists.”
The installation also draws attention to Beirut’s lack of urban planning, Hallak said, which has resulted in blocking the whole seafront with high-rise buildings.
“Historically, when you stood at the top of the stairs you would see, smell and hear the sea,” she said. “Now this is gone. So we decided to bring back the sound of the sea virtually, by having a live transmission on 106.5 FM, from the fisherman’s port to the top of the stairs.”
Saturday will also see “The Sea Alphabet,” a walk and workshop on the Ain al-Mreisseh Stairs led by Dar Onboz, offering to teach participants how to listen for sounds often missed in the city’s chaos.
“Dar Onboz are taking people from 6 to 88-years-old for a 10-minute walk, starting from the port to see the fisherman and hear the sounds, past Ibrahim Najem’s house and up the stairs, where they will have a workshop,” Hallak said. “The ‘Alphabet of the Sea’ is a poetic idea that reflects on the richness of the Arabic language, using verbs that relate to sounds and the richness of sounds in language itself.”
Another facet of the initiative is Natalie Harb’s “The Silent Room,” located at The National Bakery, a former Bliss Street landmark.
“The Silent Room” is a portable sound-proof structure within which is looped a soothing composition by Khalid Yassine. “Here people can go to isolate themselves from the noise pollution of the city,” Hallak said, and “recompose their thoughts around a form of silence.”
Harb “suggests that we integrate it within the city itself ... Instead of ordering your mankoushe, you can order your silence and auditory health, receiving silence as a service.”
“Le Souffleur” and “The Silent Room” will run until May 17.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
