Beirut exhibition uses house keys to remember destroyed homes in south Lebanon

A Beirut museum exhibition is using house keys, photos, videos and recreated rooms to preserve memories of south Lebanon after recent conflicts between Israel and Hezbollah destroyed many homes.

At Beit Beirut museum, the exhibition "Hkeeli ya Jnoub", or "Tell me, O South", includes keys hanging from the ceiling as part of an installation called "Keys Without Homes". The work features videos of three people from south Lebanon who kept the keys to homes that no longer exist.

Fatima Hajj Ali, 23, from Nabatieh al-Fawqa, is among thousands of people from south Lebanon who lost their houses in the recent fighting. She said she had expected to return home and open the door with her key, but that there was no longer a door. She said she was able to visit her house only once after an April truce that later failed to stop the fighting, and found that part of it had collapsed.

The report says the conflicts began in 2023, when Hezbollah launched attacks in support of Hamas, and again in March, when Hezbollah entered the wider Middle East war on the side of Iran, its backer. It says a lull followed a June 17 memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran, but intermittent Israeli strikes and widespread demolitions in and around occupied villages have continued, preventing many residents from returning.

Artist Adeeb Farhat, 36, who is from south Lebanon, said the idea for "Keys Without Homes" came during the previous war in 2024, when he feared his own house could be lost. He said he wondered what would happen to his home and whether his relationship with his house key would change. He also referred to the Palestinian tradition of keeping keys from homes lost during the Nakba, the Arabic word for "catastrophe", when an estimated 760,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled during the creation of Israel in 1948.

Other parts of the exhibition recreate a bedroom, living room and kitchen, with objects such as a glass jug, coffee pot and spice containers. It also includes an old photograph of Tyre, a black-and-white video of Nabatieh and notebooks where visitors wrote memories of the south.

Another work, "What Remains", by Sama Beydoun, 29, who lives in Paris, shows images of her grandfather's destroyed home in Bint Jbeil, near the Israeli border. Beydoun said she last saw the house in 2025. A technical glitch left most of the images blurred, which she said made them look like a dream. She said she remembered the family gatherings and generations connected to the house.

A photo essay called "Manufacturing Estrangements", by Rawan Mazeh, 29, tells the story of a couple detained in Khiam Prison, which was run by the South Lebanon Army, an Israeli proxy militia, during Israel's 22-year occupation of south Lebanon that ended in 2000. Mazeh said the exhibition created a comfortable place where people could feel close to their land.