The eight chambers invite participants to a temporal loop that cyclically traverses the transition of a whole generation’s hopes, aspirations, fears and disappointments. The design builds on histories of the octagon as a long held symbol for resurrection, renewal, rebirth, regeneration and transition in which participants are actively invited to square the circle, as physicality gives way to a spirituality in both self and artwork alike.

In this most recent body of work, Afaf Zurayk invites us to join her in a cathartic journey of painting, poetic prose, and poetry. The journey mirrors the history of a city and of a generation that have borne the brunt of tragic events for decades, most poignantly epitomized in the horrific Beirut port blast of August 4, 2020. Through a narration of being and of witnessing, her art describes the conquest of trust, faith, and resilience over disappointment, alienation, and misfortune.

By far Zurayk’s most ambitious project to date, her poetic narrative brilliantly flows from the personal into the generational and geographic as well as the timeless and the global.

She paints a sensitive transformation from the earthly to the ethereal: “You are artists. You change pasts and form futures. You can move forward. It is all in the tilling, not in the trees.”