Photographing the streets of Beirut is not easy, because of security issues and the perpetual fear of terrorist attack. There is a level of mistrust that I have not seen pushed to such a degree elsewhere. There are streets with a military post, or a ministry. The streets in which so-and-so has died, lived or lives. But there are also the anonymous streets, where, nevertheless, I was observed as an intruder, with ill-defined intentions - a potential danger. Intrigued, I found myself watched by those that I wanted to observe. I photographed these people at their balconies, in suspended moments above the city, before returning to the studio, to redraw details from the scene in monumental scale. This laborious gesture is a poetic and political way of giving them a place.

Classical painting transcribed great historical scenes, yet here the banal is transfigured. Moments made of nothing are raised to the height of history. The anonymous become witness and actor. Despite themselves, their simple existence conveys the fear and suffering of their nation. The most minimal gesture, that of looking upon the world from a window, portrays the human condition. They become heralds, bearing myths and they announce future tragedies that will sweep inexorably the world.