I Know the Clouds Won’t Look the Same
“I Know the Clouds Won’t Look the Same” is a visual translation of journal entries from fall of 2023 to the present. This series reflects on grief, identity, and beauty through a dreamlike lens. It is an introspective attempt to navigate a world shaped by pain and love. It captures the conscious and subconscious effects of the war in Lebanon, the live-streamed Gaza genocide, and the fleeting moments in between that make life worth living. Each image, featuring friends, family, and self-portraiture, serves as a fragment of an emotional landscape, portraying the complexity of existence in Lebanon and the pillars that anchor life amid uncertainty.” - Lara Chahine
"I promise myself i’m going to live however and whenever i can." 4 October 2023.
“I fell terribly ill. It was like a horrible purge. Anyway, today my stomach is better, but I woke up as if someone was psychically squeezing my heart.” - Lara Chahine, 23 January 2025.
“A mom loses her daughter, and she hugs her and she holds her, and I feel like somehow the child might wake up, the body is still there, the mom is hugging it. They were all alive just before the bomb.
And then I look at the footage and I see the bomb, I hear it, and then you see the bodies. It just happened so fast and from so many different angles.” - Lara Chahine, 20 October 2024.
"And then I think where do all the souls go? where are they going really? and so quickly, and so many children. who is receiving them? is anybody? or anything?"
Screenshot from Google Maps of a mosque in Gaza, 20 October 2023.
“And then I think, where do all the souls go? Where are they going, really? And so quickly, and so many children. Who is receiving them? Is anybody? Or anything?”
“The next day, we went to the beach and sat by the water. It was cold and windy, but we fought to feel the warmth.” 25 March 2025.
“I had a midnight snack with Mom last night Hot milk and kaak.” 17 July 2024.
“America puts me in a trance. I feel hypnotized in a bad way. Lebanon mystifies me, I feel grounded.” - Lara Chahine, 7 March 2024.
“I woke up from a dream, and I looked out the window, and my head spun, or the stars did. There were a lot of stars spinning. I told myself it's all yours, go back to sleep.”
“One night I woke up around 3 am, and the moonlight was so strong and blue, I wanted to nestle my face in it. It was twinkling. Kissing my pillow.”
“I had another dream, I was in an Israeli concentration camp, everyone was getting dressed in their uniforms, preparing for the rape and torture that was about to happen. I started having a panic attack, my vision was getting blurry, and my heart was palpitating. X was there. She said to focus on my heartbeat and placed my hand on her chest. My vision was restored.” - Lara Chahine
