10 Sep - 6 Dez 2025

Aya Abdallah ( Lebanon )

At ZK/U, Aya will be continuing her research and writing on mourning, ruination, and reconstruction in South Lebanon. She is developing a film project set in Khiam’s cemetery and nearby gravestone workshops, focusing on the reconstruction and reburial of destroyed gravestones. One recurring gesture in this process is the burial of gravestone rubble beneath newly built markers. Rather than discarding the fragments, they are preserved and concealed through the rebuilt structure. Aya is tracing this labor from the sourcing and cutting of marble to the engraving of names, working closely with local craftspeople. Her research considers how mourning is materialized as a form of dwelling in places marked by repeated violence. Monthly visits to the cemetery, where she photographs stone fragments and faded artificial flowers, have become a ritual of their own.