Dalia Baassiri

Dalia Baassiri | When the Season Returns IX, 2023

"For the past 3 years, I have collected elements – mainly wall fragments from the Fayyad Building facing the port of Beirut following the explosion, burnt candles left post-prayers in Harissa, and broken tree branches strewn across the streets of Beirut, cut intentionally to make charcoal for shisha smokers.

I regard these as different forms of "vulnerability". They were stored, hidden in boxes until the seasons returned. Once they reached maturity, I spread them around my studio, listening to their stories after a long-encased silence.
Through the process of assemblage, these fragments fused into compositions that reveal their intrinsic properties, occasionally emulating and blending with other elements like chameleons. At times, they become one entity, an iconic presence on raw canvas—a mosaic structure of past narratives woven into the fabric of the present.

My harvesting journey has been long: from dust to ash, to soap suds, to discarded objects... I have always been obsessively in search for fragile entities, with significant stories to tell, which I identify as the raw materials of my work.

Once found, I give them a new solid life by embracing their delicacy and strengthening them with adhesives. This obsession leads me to ask questions like: Is vulnerability contagious? Do we end up becoming where we live? Does a daily life in an unstable environment like Lebanon make us exceptionally familiar and inherently attracted to shreds and ruptures? Am I perpetually constructing a self-portrait through these clusters of broken pieces, or is this desire to preserve and merge a form of adaptation?”