Written by Liam Sibai

Elias Nafaa is a Lebanese contemporary mixed-media artist, born in 1997 in the distant and mountainous village of Andaket. The artist grew up in the coastal town of Chekka in North Lebanon, rather than in his place of birth. This experience of disconnection from one's birth place and heritage would go on to inform Nafaa’s architecture-influenced artistic practice.

Nafaa graduated with a degree in Architecture from the Académie Libanaise des Beaux Arts (ALBA) in 2019. That same year, he responded to an open call from The Modern and Contemporary Art Museum (MACAM) for their second biennale of contemporary art with an architecturally aware piece. For that event, he produced Traces of Time, 2022, an installation of white resin light that spells out the lyrics of Layali el Unse fi Vienna by the famous early 20th century Syrian singer, Amal Al-Atrash – better known as Asmahan. The words to the song are displayed vertically, hung from the ceiling, letter by letter, without separating one word from the other. The audience’s ability to walk through and around the piece rather than merely look at it as one would a painting or a sculpture is symptomatic of the artist’s concern with space, stemming from his architectural training.

Another important aspect of Traces of Time is its patrimonial subject matter. Asmahan is considered a staple of modern Arab heritage. Nafaa turns the lyrics of her song into a mere series of letters, rather than a coherent set of words separate from one another, gesturing towards a particular meaning. In this way, Traces of Time expresses a loss of connection to the artist’s Arab heritage. The theme of loss of heritage is also present in the original song, as it is an Arabic song by an Arab woman about a city in Austria, a country and cultural context she did not originate from. Unfortunately, Nafaa’s piece was not on display for very long due to the October 17th uprising in Lebanon, the economic and political collapse that followed, and the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Rather than the pandemic being a hurdle for Nafaa, it became the subject matter of his next project, The Act of Impulsively Claiming Space, 2021. This project was a photo documentation that recorded Nafaa’s process of work on another drawing series titled Impulsions, 2022. Central to this photo documentation was a long roll of paper. Drawn onto this roll of paper in wax crayons were abstract shapes of different vibrant primary colors. Nafaa started on one end of the roll, painting on it regularly. Due to social distancing restrictions enforced by the pandemic, the artist found himself locked up in his studio on a daily basis. Nafaa painted repetitive motifs onto the same roll of paper. There was a noticeable lack of separation between what was produced on one day and what was produced on another, creating one continuous roll. A day’s work blended into the next, resembling how daily life in quarantine became indistinguishable and repetitive, as time was spent in the same place. The Act of Impulsively Claiming Space was displayed across a residence in the prominent city of Tripoli, Lebanon. The roll draped down the home’s stairs, through its corridors, and even out a window. This piece, like many others, reflects Nafaa’s architectural background, as its display thoughtfully interacts with the spatial features of the home, including windows and stairs.

The project would go on to become Nafaa’s first solo exhibition, 2022’s Impulsion. The show displayed segments of the aforementioned roll of paper across different boards and onto the walls of the Artlab Gallery in Beirut. The show was held after the COVID restrictions had been lifted and therefore responded to this fact. Impulsions also featured different wooden cubic sculptures called Pulsations, 2021, that contained a light within. This light shone out of the cube through colored translucent sheets of glass. The sheets were shaped and colored in a manner similar to the vivid abstract shapes of the displayed roll of paper. The light produced by these boxes could be moved around and made to intersect with the light of other boxes, creating new abstract shapes and colors. This was a way for the artist to invite people to gather, collaborate, and connect after the social distancing the pandemic forced upon them.

After exploring themes related to the pandemic, Nafaa decided to return to his initial artistic subject matter: heritage and the loss of connection. In 2023, he exhibited a series of works titled Eulogy to My Roots alongside co-artists Laetitia Hakim and Tarek Haddad’s How to Stop a Rock from Growing, under the title Ebb & Flow: on Power and Loss. The show was conceived after a fire had consumed part of the forest of Nafaa’s hometown of Andaket. This became an essential context for the project as it explored the interplay between power and loss across both personal and collective experiences. 

One of the pieces, The Fire, 2023, is a cedar wood sculpture shrouded in white paint, featuring a bush next to a flame. The sculpture reflects Nafaa’s sentiments on how fire had destroyed the forest of his native town. All the artworks in Eulogy to My Roots are made out of cedar wood. The cedar tree is a timeless symbol of Lebanon, representing resilience, pride, and the country's deep-rooted heritage and natural beauty. The use of a bush and the cedar wood in Eulogy to My Roots is a play on words since bushes and trees have roots in the ground, as do all plants. The word ‘roots’ is also often used to refer to one’s cultural or national heritage or origins. A eulogy, being a speech performed to honor someone who had recently died, is aptly used in this title as well. As the name suggests, Eulogy to My Roots is about the loss of connection to one’s heritage. Hence the exhibition tackles the subject matter of honoring one’s ‘dead’ heritage – the heritage one can no longer claim relation to. 

Another exceptional piece from this exhibition, Downfall, 2023, is currently part of the Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation (DAF) in Beirut. This commanding wood sculpture embodies tension and movement, captured in a medium known for its rigidity and permanence. Crafted with architectural precision, it measures 150 cm in height, 200 cm in width, and 25 cm in depth, presenting a sweeping yet grounded presence within its display environment. The sculpture depicts a human figure hanging upside down from a stylized tree, appearing barely connected to his roots. The figure, rendered in a stark greyish-white, lacks discernible facial characteristics and is portrayed almost completely nude, stripped of any cultural or ethnic identity. This neutralized, universal figure, detached from his cultural or national roots, seems to symbolize vulnerability and disconnection. The tree, with its delicate branches adorned with smooth leaves and rounded fruit-like forms, contrasts the precariousness of the human figure with its grounded stability. The interaction between the figure and the tree, along with the minimalist, clean lines of the sculpture, evokes a poetic tension between humanity and nature, exploring themes of disconnection, upheaval, and fragility. Being part of Nafaa’s 2023 collaborative series, Downfall serves as another eulogy to the loss of heritage and the last semblance of holding onto one’s roots.

Elias Nafaa’s work has reflected both personal and collective subject matters of interest. Throughout his career thus far, he has explored themes of heritage, identity, and space through his multidisciplinary practice shaped by his architectural background. In 2023, Nafaa left Lebanon and relocated to Canada. He currently works as a Program Assistant at the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montréal. Nafaa’s recent work remains rooted in his long-standing engagement with heritage, now expanding to examine how cultural institutions navigate moments of crisis.

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Sources

About Ancestry. US Census Bureau. December 16, 2021. https://www.census.gov/topics/population/ancestry/about.html#:~:text=Ancestry%20refers%20to%20a%20person’s,arrival%20in%20the%20United%20States.

Asmahan: The Syrian Star Who Remains Forever Young. Arab News. Accessed September 5, 2024. https://www.arabnews.com/node/2224631/lifestyle.

Ebb & Flow: On Power and Loss Collective Exhibition. Galerie Tanit. March 5, 2024. https://www.galerietanit.com/exhibitions/ebb-flow-collective-exhibition/.

Elias Nafaa: The Fire (2023). Artsy. Accessed September 8, 2024. https://www.artsy.net/artwork/elias-nafaa-the-fire.

Impulsions. Elias Nafaa. Accessed September 4, 2024. https://eliasnafaa.com/IMPULSIONS.

Nafaa, Elias. Eulogy to My Roots. Elias Nafaa. Accessed September 4, 2024. https://eliasnafaa.com/EULOGY-TO-MY-ROOTS.

Pulsations. Elias Nafaa. Accessed September 4, 2024. https://eliasnafaa.com/PULSATIONS.

Sibai, Liam. Interview with Elias Nafaa. The Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation, n.d.

The Act of Impulsively Claiming Space. Elias Nafaa. Accessed September 4, 2024. https://eliasnafaa.com/THE-ACT-OF-IMPULSIVELY-CLAIMING-SPACE-1.

Traces of Time. Elias Nafaa. Accessed September 4, 2024. https://eliasnafaa.com/TRACES-OF-TIME.

Why Every Day Feels the Same during Lockdown, According to Psychologists. She Defined. June 19, 2020. https://shedefined.com.au/wellbeing/why-every-day-feels-the-same-during-lockdown-according-to-psychologists/.