The work of Marwan Rechmaoui (Beirut, 1964) is strongly tied to concerns, which surfaced among artists of his generation, with archiving and documenting the contemporary history of his country after the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990). His work, primarily sculpture, is the product of experimentation with materials from the urban environment — concrete, plastic, rubber — and stems from long processes of research, whereby the artist vindicates maps as a tool for deconstructing meanings.    

In this interview, Rechmaoui brings to light the importance of configuring urban space, symbolically, socially and politically, in our interpretation of the past. He plots a journey around pieces inspired by Beirut’s complex urbanism, such as Blue Building (2015), which is part of the Museo Reina Sofía Collection and which examines rampant urban development in a city carrying the memory of successive earthquakes, fires and wars. His installations, moreover, record the history of a city permanently being reconstructed and subjected to constant tensions, such as those resulting from the revolution which, in response to neoliberal policies over the past few decades, occupy Lebanon’s squares today.