BIO
Chérine Yazbeck
I was born in 1970 in Beirut.
Lebanon and more particularly Beirut is my main source of inspiration. The city, loss, destruction and memory have become the dominant themes of my photographic career.
Since 1993, I have worked as a photojournalist for several international magazines & media: AFP, Arte, France 24, M6, Planète Thalassa, RTS, SBS and ABC Australia.
In 1986, I compulsively photographed the Berlin Wall.
A few years later, in 1991, I compiled the dramatic images I captured in a portfolio titled Beirut, Destroy.
In 1996, La Laverie des Martyrs, Zicco House exhibited my collection of photographs of the cemetery of the Shiite martyrs of Beirut.
Beirut, Destroy, a series of photographs taken between 1991 and 1996 in Beirut, was exhibited at Plan Bey (Beirut). Striking images of the destruction of Beirut in contact sheet form are a nod to analog photography.
Apocalypse Beirut, an ongoing photographic project, is the story of a city partially destroyed during 15 years of civil war, totally emptied of its soul.
Gaza Hospital, displayed at the Beirut Image Festival in 2019, is a testimony to life in a disastrous situation. In 2016, I visited Gaza Hospital for the first time while reporting on a story. The partially destroyed war hospital of the mid-1980s. The story of the Gaza hospital bears witness to the continued denial of a country that refuses to address its own war history.
In the aftermath of the explosion of August 4, 2020, I started a substantive work on the port and more particularly on the silos.
One of my latest documentaries for ABC Australia, Shockwave (4Corners) shot in August 2020 (40'), was short-listed by the Lowy Institute: Incredible survival stories from the Beirut blast zone in October 2021.
The day I died is a forensic photographic work triggered by numerous walks around the Beirut port silos. The silos became a "fictional crime scene". The result was a body of work in the three different sections featuring an installation of a field reconstruction and documents created by myself - medical examiner, forensic police reports and a series of photographs (evidence of the crime).
Beirut Port Blast Stories is a 30-minute documentary completed in early 2023. Alternating between poetic images and the sensitive testimonies of five people, the documentary offers a personal account of the consequences of this tragedy which claimed the lives of more than 220 people.
I currently live and work in Beirut.