100 objects – 100 years

Traditional embroidery and handicrafts from the Pontus region holding the thread of history and memory.

The Greeks of Constantinople

The powerful personal testimonies of Greeks from Constantinople reliving the events of 1955 and the loss of home and history.

Martyrs’ Square

Did you know that Beirut’s iconic Martyrs’ Square (ساحة الشهداء  / Sahat al -Shuhadah, Place des Martyrs) has not always been known by that name?  Its most popular local name is Al-Burj (“the tower”), originally coined in reference to the Burj Al-Kashef watchtower. In the nineteenth century it was known as Place des Canons until…

Mapping Empire

I’m so pleased that Alena Strohmaier and Angela Krewani’s Media and Mapping Practices in the Middle East and North Africa is finally in print. The book is published by Amsterdam University Press. It is open access and available online through the publisher’s site. Congratulations Alena and Angela, and all the contributors in this volume! My chapter ‘Mapping…

A Map of Place

This is an excerpt from my unpublished thesis, Lost and Found in Beirut: Memory and Place in Narratives of the City To cite: Dados, NN (2010) Lost and Found in Beirut: Memory and Place in Narratives of the City (Sydney: University of Technology Sydney), pp.31-33  <https://www.academia.edu/37054440/Lost_and_Found_in_Beirut_Memory_and_Place_in_Narratives_of_the_City>   How to proceed towards a map of place The…

Beirut, Beirut

In the weeks that have passed since the explosion in Beirut on 4 August, 2020, I have shared updates as well as archival and personal photos with information about how to help the recovery and rebuilding. It’s been heartbreaking to see the destruction of the spaces of my childhood. Those neighbourhoods stretch out like a…

‘Scenes & Types’

Nineteenth century colonial visual culture amassed a significant photographic archive and a set of cultural practices that shaped social, cultural, economic and political life in the Levant. But how did local agency shape the visual archive of early twentieth century Beirut?