The Atlas Group (1989-2008)

The Atlas Group is a project established by Walid Raad in Beirut in 1989 to research and document the contemporary history of Lebanon, with a focus on the Lebanese wars from 1975 till 1990. Appropriating the aspects of literary fiction and conceptual photography, sound and video, The Atlas Group locates, preserves, studies and produces documents that shed light on this particular period. These documents, preserved in The Atlas Group Archive which is located in Beirut and New York, could be potential artefacts for the writing of a new history of Lebanon.

Title: Notebook volume 38: Already been in a lake of fire
Attributed date: 1991
Attributed to: Dr. Fadl Fakhouri
Production date: 2003

This document is attributed to Dr. Fadl Fakhouri, one of Lebanon's leading historians. The historian donated 226 notebooks, 2 shorts films, and 24 black and white photographs to The Atlas Group in the early 1990s.

This notebook contains 145 cut-out photographs of cars. They correspond to the exact make, model and colour of every car that was used as a car bomb between 1975 and 1991.

Each of the following notebook pages includes a cut-out photograph of a car that matches the make, model and colour of a car that was used as a car bomb, as well as text written in Arabic that details the place, time and date of the explosion, the number of casualties, the perimeter of destruction, the exploded car’s engine and axle numbers, and the weight and type of the explosives used.

Title: Notebook volume 72: Missing Lebanese wars
Attributed date: 1989
Attributed to: Dr Fadl Fakhouri
Production date: 2002

This document is attributed to Dr. Fadl Fakhouri, one of Lebanon's leading historians.  The historian donated 226 notebooks, 2 shorts films, and 24 black and white photographs to The Atlas Group in the early 1990s.

It is a little known fact that the major historians of the Lebanese wars were avid gamblers. It is said that they met every Sunday at the race track -- Marxists and Islamists bet on races one through seven; Maronite nationalists and socialists on races eight through fifteen.

Race after race, the historians stood behind the track photographer, whose job was to image the winning horse as it crossed the finish line, to record the photo-finish. It is also said that they convinced (some say bribed) the photographer to snap only one picture as the winning horse arrived.

Each historian wagered on precisely when --how many fractions of a second before or after the horse crossed the finish line -- the photographer would expose his frame.

Each of the following notebook pages includes a photograph clipped from the post-race-day issue of the newspaper, An-Nahar. They include Dr Fakhouri’s notations on the race’s distance and duration, the winning time of the winning horse, calculations of averages, the historians’ initials with their respective bets, the time discrepancy predicted by the winning historian.

Written on each page is also a brief paragraph in English. Dr Fakhouri’s widow, Zainab Fakhouri, has attributed these to her husband’s habit of including short descriptions of the winning historians in his notebooks.