The Lebanese Pavilion invited artist Mounira Al Solh to create a bridge between myth and reality. Her multimedia installation A Dance with her Myth – combining painting, drawing, sculpture, embroidery, and video – plunges visitors in ancient Phoenicia through modern plastic and visual techniques.
Al Solh’s installation is rooted in a mythical tale: the abduction of Princess Europa on a beach of the city of Tyre by the god Zeus, who took the form of a white bull. Revisiting mythological tales allows critical reflection and the emergence of alternative perspectives.
The journey that Al Solh invites us to pursue, following in the footsteps of Princess Europa, leads to the realisation of a feminine destiny, liberated from the influence of the “Gods”—one that embraces the role and responsibilities typically associated with men without being subjected to them, and whilst aspiring to a different state of being.
Al Solh’s reinterpretation of the myth creates a rhetorical and visual space celebrating emancipation, freedom, equality, commitment, and solidarity. The Lebanese Pavilion presents this exhibition to the public, aiming to nurture the collective social and political awareness through the transformative power of art.
wooden boat and mast, sail (organic red textile, beige cotton canvas & embroidered cotton), fishing cages, sage and bay leaves, plastic bottles, video (color, sound), donkey head (fired ceramic, glazed and painted); boat: 130 × 490 × 170 cm; sail: 190.5 × 310 cm; ceramic sculpture: 73 × 31 × 70 cm
video, color, sound, 11 min 59 sec (still)
charcoal, collage and oil on canvas, 200 × 215 cm
charcoal, collage and oil on canvas, 222 × 215 cm
fired ceramics, glazed and painted, 54 × 51 × 10 cm
fired ceramics, glazed and painted, 48 × 60 × 11 cm
fired ceramics, glazed and painted, 65 × 55 × 12 cm
fired ceramics, glazed and painted, 48 × 28 × 8.5 cm
All people inherit foundational or exemplary stories, including the Lebanese, whose myths date back to their ancestors — the Phoenicians. The history of Phoenicia is little known. The people who invented the alphabet left few written records. Nevertheless, cities such as Byblos, Beirut, Saida and Tyre attest, through their vestiges, to a glorious past. Phoenicia is part of the history of the great powers that would subsequently dominate it: Alexander the Great’s Greece, and the Roman Empire. Famous Phoenician myths such as the union of Adonis, citizen of Byblos, with the goddess Aphrodite; the myth of Hercules and his dog finding the murex on a beach in Tyre; and the abduction of Europa in these very same locations have entered more or less literally into Greco-Roman mythology. Mounira Al Solh also pays tribute to this rich multimillennial and still thriving cultural heritage.
watercolor, marker, charcoal, ink, acrylic, oil pastels and paper stitched on papyrus, 34 × 44.5 cm
watercolor, marker, charcoal, ink, acrylic, oil pastels and paper stitched on papyrus, 33 × 41.7 cm
watercolor, marker, charcoal, ink, acrylic, oil pastels and paper stitched on papyrus, 32.5 × 40.3 cm
watercolor, marker, charcoal, ink, acrylic, oil pastels and paper stitched on papyrus, 44 × 34 cm
watercolor, marker, charcoal, ink, acrylic, oil pastels and paper stitched on papyrus, 44.7 × 41.5 cm
Photo: Federico Vespignani © LVAA