The Chronicles of Flowers

For The Chronicles of Flowers, Shehab creates her own “mashrabiyas”, highlighting the strong relationship between the generations of women, the ephemerality of beings, and the screens shaping perception. The exhibition invites the audience to a multi-sensory experience, with plexi-glass screens, video and audio projections, and flower scents. An artist book documenting 77 flowers and their relevant memory to the artist accompanies the exhibition. The personal narrative in the book starts in the early 1980’s Civil War in Lebanon, and ends in 2017’s post Revolution in Cairo.

The Chronicles of Flowers is a personal documentation of Bahia Shehab’s long-lasting relationship with flowers. In the spring of 2011, when Shehab broke her left knee, her mother came from Beirut to nurse her in Cairo. Every morning, she created a flower arrangement from the garden to leave next to Shehab’s bed. This process triggered a state of obsessive flower documentation for the artist that lasted for several years.

Shehab realized that flowers, just like the women surrounding her, have been important for all her life, for understanding who she was and how she related to her surroundings. She grew up in a family valuing flowers and their meanings. Flowers decorated nargilas and necklines, walking sticks and bedsides. They were cooked in special seasonal dishes; dried to drink during the winters. These flowers were the screens through which Shehab perceived the world.

Zilberman Gallery, Istanbul - Turkey. Video installation with 3 digital artworks displayed on a projector, engraved plexi-glass, wood and digital book. May to June 2017.