Undead martyrs and decay: when photography fails its promise of eternal memory

Abstract

In this essay, the author presents the artwork Faces (2009) by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige as a case study of the War Generation Artists’ alternative representations of martyrs, or counter-monuments, in Lebanon. Alam demonstrates how Faces intentionally engages with the question of representation to deconstruct the original signification of the posters of martyrs it appropriates using a mise en abyme trope. The author argues that in Faces, the ruination of the medium of representation (photography) reflects the ruination of the subject of representation (the commemoration of the martyrs). Alam concludes by classifying this artwork as Faux-Ephemeral-Art.

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