Lebanese visual artist and archaeologist Lina Jouni has transformed fragments, pieces of metal, wires and stones left by bombing in southern Lebanon into works of art that revive the memory of places and residents. She began the project after returning to her home in the town of Roumine, in the Nabatieh district, following her displacement during the 2024 Israeli offensive.
Jouni collects bombing remnants from her home
Jouni found traces of the war scattered throughout and around her home, from bombing remnants to stones, metal and wires. Rather than dispose of them or leave them as evidence of destruction alone, she began collecting them and viewing them through the combined perspective of her experience in visual art and her specialism in archaeology. She then reshaped them into faces, sculptures and forms carrying the stories of the place and its people.
Jouni said the idea began as a psychological reaction to the scene she encountered when she returned home, then gradually developed into an artistic project. Through it, she sought to free the pieces from their association with harm and give them a different meaning, without erasing the imprint of war or separating the materials from the stories connected to them.
Missile transformed into a Lebanese cedar
Among the project’s most prominent works is a piece taken from a missile that Jouni says destroyed a 3-storey house. The artist reshaped the piece into a Lebanese cedar, turning it from the remnant of a weapon associated with the destruction of a home into a symbol of life, survival and continuity. Other fragments became faces and forms evoking people and places that experienced the war or lost their children.
Jouni also devoted a work to recalling events in Nabatieh, Kfar Roummane and Ali al-Taher Hill. She used colours and compositions to connect each piece to the site where it was collected, keeping the work’s material linked to the memory of the place. Some works carry human stories connected to victims of the bombing, including one piece that tells the story of a mother killed with her two children.
She also addressed the story of a man she knew who was wounded several times before he was killed. She reshaped one of the fragments into a form that she said symbolised his spirit as it soared. Through this treatment, the metal pieces became more than remnants: they became witnesses preserving the lives of their owners. Jouni said working with bombing remnants differed from traditional painting because shaping iron required effort, while adding colour to some pieces was also difficult.
She therefore tests more than one method and technique before arriving at the final form of each work, in keeping with the nature of the material and the story she wants to express. The project was not limited to remnants found near her home, as Jouni also took part in rubble-clearance sites to expand the collection of materials on which she works.
Nabatieh rubble turned into a statue of resistance
She collected pieces of iron, fragments and wires from those sites, then repurposed them in her works. In the city of Nabatieh, she made a sculpture from the remaining rubble bearing the words, “We refuse to die.” Her paintings also documented the war: she turned scenes of the air raids and smoke she witnessed into works evoking towns and areas including Kafr Shuba, Adaisseh and Khiam.
She added faces and figures that remained lodged in her memory to these paintings, bringing together her experience of reshaping physical remnants and painting scenes she witnessed during the war. Jouni’s specialism in archaeology influences the way she handles the materials: she views iron and stone as part of the memory of a period, a place and a history, rather than simply as raw materials that can be shaped.
In this way, she uses art to confront the effects of war by recasting them and preserving their stories, starting with rubble stones, fragments and pieces that survived the destruction. She sums up her aim in her words: “So that we can create life again and continue.”
