Christina Hajjar
The Landmarks of Memory, 2023
In this video, a tattoo ritual and hookah session memorialize a pre-war flower shop in Beirut. After seeing its storefront in archival footage of the Lebanese Civil War, a first-generation daughter seeks information and connection to place. Scenes of 1976 Beirut are paired with today’s modern landscape while roses are etched and coconut coals burn in a snowy diasporic setting.
About the Artist
Christina Hajjar is a Lebanese artist, writer, and cultural worker based in Winnipeg on Treaty 1 Territory. Her practice considers intergenerational inheritance, domesticity, and place through diaspora, body archives, and cultural iconography. As a queer femme and first-generation subject, she is invested in the poetics of process, translation, and collaborative labour. Hajjar was a recipient of the 2020 PLATFORM Photography Award. Her film Don’t Forget the Water won the Jury Award and Audience Choice Award at the 2021 Gimli Film Festival, as well as an honourable mention for the 2021 Emerging Digital Artists Award. Learn more at christinahajjar.com.