The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

I had really become quite enthusiastic after our meeting at the Sports Club on Sunday night, and as a result I stayed up until 5am transcribing our interview with Ghassan. This was rather stupid, because it meant that I was much too tired to accompany either Alite or Nikos on Monday morning when they went respectively to visit the Dutch embassy and to interview Reine.

Once I was finally able to open my eyes again, it was time to get ourselves ready for our presentation on Monday evening at Samra, the bar below Zico House. Nikos had been working extremely hard on the presentation, and so it was a bit of a shame when almost nobody turned up. This seems to suggest two things:

1. We didn’t publicise it very well – we had only sent out a proper invitation the night before, and even then to only a few people.
2. People here do not care about our project – perhaps not surprising since we are trying to get people interested in something that happened two years ago.

I think it is fair to say that both are probably valid. Still, quite disappointing considering that we had come all this way and worked so hard.

Afterwards, we had a few beers in Samra before heading across town to Gemmayze, the (for now) hip area of town with lots of trendy bars and beautiful people. We spent the rest of the evening in Torino Express, a cosy wee bar which could easily have been in Barcelona or London.

This city is really confusing me. It is such a strange and overwhelming mixture of signals, lifestyles, images, and people that it is impossible to get an idea of what it is actually about. It is European and Middle Eastern at the same time, but this is far too simple to describe the situation. Every time I think that I am getting an idea of the place, I come across something else to complicate things. I must say that this is really intriguing, and I am getting more and more attached to the place.

After a few hours sleep, we had to get up again on time on Tuesday to go and interview Ali, another of the 2006 participants. Unfortunately he was not there to meet us, which at least means a bit less transcribing to be done later.

Due to complications when booking tickets, I was to stay a day extra. This was the last day for Nikos and Alite however, so we took the time to wander around in a relaxed manner. We met Reine for lunch in Gemmayze, and later on had one last drink in Barometre with Tony. We were all pretty tired, and since they had to get up at 4am for the plane, we all went to bed quite early.

On Wednesday morning I woke up alone in Zico House. I have to admit that this was actually a nice feeling, and that I was very happy indeed to spend a relaxing morning tidying up and drinking coffee. Later, I visited the National Museum, which has some very interesting displays of stone tools from the very beginning of western human civilisation. It is quite difficult to get a sense of time when you are confronted with a little stone ball and told that it was used to beat things 1 million years ago. I could just imagine some hairy caveman grunting and smashing at things with it – in some ways we have come a long way since then, but in other ways not so much at all.

Afterwards, I met up with Bchara for a look round his office. He works for a firm doing some very interesting architectural and sculptural projects, and when his boss found out that I originally trained and worked as an interior designer, he immediately asked if I would like to come and work for him! I really couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not, but after the experience of the last week I was in fact quite tempted to say yes. Alas, there are too many reasons to stay in Holland for now. Maybe some other time – he said that I was welcome to get in touch “any time in the next 100 years”.

I later had a wander round Ashrafiye, a predominantly Christian part of town, before meeting up with Bchara again to go to the cinema. I saw quite a few of the people from the Beirut art scene who we had met over the last few days, confirming my suspicion that it is indeed quite a small world here. Everyone seems to know everyone else, which could be a good or a bad thing depending on the circumstances.

Later we had one final drink (and a delicious sandwich) in Gemmayze before I headed back to Zico House to get packed and catch a few hours sleep before waking up in time for my taxi to the airport at 4.30am.

As with the outward journey, there is nothing of note to say about the return flight besides that it was long and uncomfortable – aeroplanes are of course not built for the percentile of people such as myself above 1.9m.

Back in Holland, everything seems so strangely quiet. To employ a cliché, Beirut is an assault on the senses – countless conflicting images, the smell of pollution, cigarette smoke, petrol, rubbish, and Arabic coffee, the sound of car horns and taxis with broken exhausts, and the clammy, sticky feel of the heat. Coming from this most chaotic place, Amsterdam seems like the most neat and orderly place in the world. Even the motorway near my house, which usually bothers me, is hardly noticeable.

So, while it is good to be home, I hope very much that I will get the chance to spend some more time in Beirut in the future. It is fair to say that it is one of the most fascinating places I have ever visited.

Since my worries on Friday, quite a lot has been achieved to calm me down. Firstly, we had two meetings on Friday – at the Lebanese artists’ association Ashkal Alwan, and then later with the organisers of the 98WEEKS project.

The first of these was quite informative in relation to the art scene Lebanon – it would appear in particular that there is not very much in the way of structure in the country in this regard, which is clearly not surprising given its recent history. It seems that business is conducted in a much more informal and personal basis than in western Europe, with small groups forming and with perhaps quite a tribal mentality as a result. It is hard not to make mental comparisons with Lebanese society as a whole.

Later, we sat in the improbably-cold surroundings of Café De Prague, whose air conditioning could do to be turned down a few notches. We were there to meet with Marwa Arsanios and Mirene Arsanios, the founders of 98WEEKS. Theirs is a project with some similarities to Here As The Centre Of The World, in that it will involve Lebanese and foreign artists and will focus on public space. Afterwards, we were faced with the strange contrast from normal proceedings when we went outside to get away from the cold…

Later, we saw a (not very interesting) street performance which was part of the street festival organised by our host, Zico House. This took place in the newly-reconstructed city centre, which has been entirely rebuilt from the ground up following its total destruction during the Civil War. What is quite alarming is that fact that it is entirely built and managed by a private company, so that this in effect not really “public” space at all. As we see with American corporations in Iraq, it is often the private sector who stand to make the most from war and its aftermath.

Despite our meetings, I was still quite agitated on Friday night when we met up once again with Tony in the evening for a drink. I was getting increasingly panicked about the lack of a visible result from our trip. My state of mind was not made any better by the presence at our table of the famous curator Catherine David, who happens to know Tony. I really tense up around such “important” people, especially when they are the type whom it is necessary to impress in order to make it big in the art world.

She was something of a living, breathing stereotype: an absurd caricature of a middle-aged Frenchwoman, nonchalantly sipping whisky and smoking theatrically out of the side of her mouth, gazing wistfully into the air after every puff. Perhaps she’s OK once you get to know her.

My impatience caused a bit of tension between myself and Nikos and Alite later, which I feel quite bad about. They are both used to working at quite a different tempo to myself. I hope very much that we can find some sort of middle ground, with perhaps a bit more urgency from them and a bit more patience from me.

On Saturday, we went once again to Café De Prague to interview Bchara Malkoun, one of the other participants from the workshop in 2006. We fired questions at him for almost two hours, recording the whole thing on tape. This proved to be much too ambitious, and in fact I have spent about five hours transcribing the whole bloody conversation, the result of which is no less than twenty-two pages long. This is a concrete result, but perhaps a bit too concrete.

We have been eating almost exclusively from Barbar, a snack bar down the road which appears to be open twenty-four hours a day. They sell a sort of folded-over pizza for 2000 Lebanese Lire, which is not much more than €1. This delicious snack plus very strong coffee has been the main fuel for our activities.

On Sunday, after I had finally finished transcribing the interview with Bchara, we went for an appointment with his fellow workshop participant Ghassan Halawani at the Sports Club bar on the beach, this time with a drastically-reduced set of questions. On the way, we had time to stop and wander around a rusty and dilapidated old funfair, seemingly staffed only by swarthy-looking children. The sentimental Arabic music that blasted from an ancient stereo system held together with tape completed the atmosphere of forlorn abandonment.

The interview with Ghassan went well, in fact so well that we didn’t have time to interview Reine, who had come to meet us once again with her baby and husband. Hopefully we will have time to talk tomorrow.

We have now been in Beirut for three days. I have stopped hearing the constant car horns and have become slightly more accustomed to the heat.

On Tuesday evening we met up with Tony Chakar, a Beirut resident, occasional DAI guest, and Here As The Centre Of The World project co-coordinator during the Beirut and Enschede workshops. He took us to Barometre, a small café/restaurant not far from where we are staying in the centre of the city. The food was very good, the local beer also, and it was also great to catch up with Tony and have a few laughs.

We ended up spending most of Wednesday inside Zico House trying to get some work done. Whilst Nikos was busy with a presentation about Here As The Centre Of The World, I set about compiling a list of questions for the Beirut-based participants. The purpose of our trip is of course to collect information for the book which is to be published about the project, since efforts to solicit opinions and feedback remotely via email have largely failed. The idea of the questions was to try and provide a stimulus for extensive feedback, since “what did you think of the project?” is of course quite difficult to answer beyond “it was great” or “it was a waste of time”.

In the evening, Nikos cooked dinner (we had gone shopping at a local supermarket earlier), and later project leader Alite arrived from the Netherlands.

After quite a slow start on Thursday, we went to visit Beirut-based artist and former HATCOTW participant Reine Mahfouz, who has just had a baby boy. On the way to her house on the eastern edge of Beirut, we had our second experience with taking a taxi, this time thankfully not so expensive.

Taxis on the street here are a bit different to Europe. Instead of hailing a taxi and asking the driver to take you to your destination (although this is possible), it is cheaper to hail one of the frequently passing taxis (which are usually bashed to bits and full of holes), even if it is already carrying passengers. You tell the driver that you want “service”, which means that you are happy to be crammed into his car with as many people as possible and are prepared to reach your destination by whatever route is necessary to deliver the other passengers as well. Following our experience when coming from the airport, it has become clear that it is essential to agree the price before getting in the car.

As it happened, we ended up being in our own in the car which was perhaps a bit of a shame. This will doubtless not be the last time that we take a taxi, so there is plenty of opportunity for experiencing this strange taxi/bus combination.

When we went to see Reine and her little baby, we were served a sort of pudding made from rice and flavoured with cinnamon, coconut, and nuts. This is traditionally served to guests when a new baby has been born. It was delicious, and certainly an improvement on Beschuit met muisjes, the dry and crusty Dutch equivalent.

In the evening, we once again went for dinner with Tony at Barometre, this time accompanied by some other residents at Zico House – a Turkish girl and a couple of Belgians who have just finished an art workshop here in Lenanon.

I am a little concerned that, despite the fact that it is obviously very enjoyable to be spending time in this exciting city, we have not made very much progress on our mission. Hopefully things will accelerate a bit during the next few days.

After much indecision and uncertainty, it was finally decided the week before last that myself and Nikos, my fellow ex-DAI student and agreed working partner, would travel for ten days to Beirut in Lebanon. We would leave today.

To give a little background to this, it must be explained that agreement was reached some time ago that a group of students would return in pairs to the five cities (besides Enschede) which were the site of the workshops during the Dutch Art Institute’s Here As The Centre Of The World project. After much discussion, it was decided that myself and Nikos would form the team for Beirut.

The purpose of our visit is somewhat loosely defined – we are basically to collect material (visual, written, or otherwise) pertaining to the previous workshop in Beirut and the experiences of the participants who live in Beirut in all workshops. How this will take place is another matter. Also, two years and a major armed conflict have passed since the DAI was last here, facts which of course cannot be disregarded.

Such complications can wait, however. The first thing was to get here, and get to grips with the place.

After the sort of frantically busy morning of getting things that cannot wait done which usually precedes flying, I arrived at Schiphol, my rucksack crammed full of clothes and other essentials just half an hour before. Actually I was in plenty of time to meet up with Nikos, get checked in, and endure the usual hanging around which makes air travel so tedious.

We needed first to fly to Larnaca in Cyprus, from where we would catch a short connecting flight to Beirut. Unfortunately, the first flight was late in leaving, but thankfully not long enough to put us in danger of missing the second. There is little to be said about the journey except that it was long (I am not used to more than about an hour and a half in the air), the food was OK, and there were no unusual incidents of any kind whatsoever. This is of course exactly what is to be hoped for when flying.

On arrival at Beirut airport, we were immediately accosted by a friendly taxi driver who was more than helpful in carrying our bags and asking all sorts of questions. What was quite stupid of course was that we failed to ask the price before getting in, which meant that we ended up paying an extortionate US$40 for a 15-minute journey. We had been told that it should have been about half that.

Not the best start to our stay in the city, but things went better from then on. We are staying at Zico House, an arts centre in a beautiful old house in the Sanayeh area of the city. We were made to feel very welcome. After having a chat with the owner we headed out for something to eat: a sort of folded over pizza, with a can of juice and a bottle of water for US$3 – not bad.

In the morning, it was quite hard to stay asleep due to the constant noise of traffic and incessant car horns outside. Being Greek, Nikos is a bit more used to this, but it is new to me. Hopefully it will fade into the background a bit after a day or two.

We spent the morning exploring the area around the house, which seems to be mostly banks, and western fashion chains and coffee houses; not really what would perhaps spring to mind when thinking of a city which has more of a name for endless, sporadic (and sometimes long-lasting) conflicts. Either this area has been spared the worst, or the Lebanese are very good at picking themselves up and getting back on their feet.