The Laundry hanging over the city

The present diptych is an outstanding example of Zeina Assi's urban landscapes series. The artist looks up at her own city with a masterful eye for composition - a perfect documentation of imageries from Beirut in an urban rush hour. The sky is barely mentioned and Assi's own vertical perspective adds more intimacy through closer views of windows, walls, rooftops and hanging laundry. Buildings are interwoven in a tapestry of electrical wires, laundry lines, urban graffiti signs, sometimes shouting positively for hope, other times rebellious against the politics - the politics of Lebanon that emerge from the freedom of its streets, emphasizing on the strong positioning of Beiruit as the eternal free voice of the Middle East. In the midst of this rhythmic chaos, we recognize very few traditional houses through their terracotta brick roofs in this giant cement forest that sadly dominates Beirut today.