When Art Reflects on War and History

Antonine University (UA), in collaboration with the NABU Museum, invites you to visit the exhibition Hope & Despair held on UA’s Hadat–Baabda Campus between April 18 and May 12, 2023. The exhibition reflects the NABU Museum’s core mission, which is not only to preserve and enhance the region’s heritage and culture through educational and training programs, exhibitions, and public lectures, but also to raise people’s voices and awareness about societies’ struggles.

Hope & Despair features artworks about war and history from Lebanon; sculptures, paintings, posters, and photos focus on representing the epic displacement and asylum of nations in their forced migration and the horrifying face of humanity in wartime. The posters and photographs illustrate, through very different approaches, the political parties and the militias’ propaganda during Lebanon’s civil war, the act of revolt, and the duty of remembrance.

In view of the civil war’s significance carried in the Lebanese people’s consciousness, UA aims to shed light on this period of Lebanon’s history in order to help its students and all those interested reexamine the events and battles of the war and see them through the eyes of others, from the perspective of their goals and sufferings.