A Game for Swallows

Zeina Abirached

2 ideas

1. One night sheltering in a Beirut hallway

   In 1984 East Beirut, near the demarcation line, young Zeina and her little brother wait in the entrance hall of their apartment while heavy shelling traps their parents, who had gone to see their grandmother across the neighbourhood. Neighbours from the building come down one by one to join them. Over the evening they cook, gossip, tell stories and recite from Cyrano de Bergerac, looking after the children until the parents finally return.

2. War remaps the geography of home

   Under bombardment, the architecture of the apartment gets reorganised. The windowless entrance hall, a pass-through space in peacetime, becomes the only safe room, and so the living room, the dining room and the place where the family keeps its memories. Ordinary space is ranked by its exposure to shells and snipers rather than by its intended use.

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