Over the past 150 years, Beirut has witnessed a cycle of unbridled growth, war, economic and social crises and migratory movements.

It is in this territory ceaselessly destroyed and
rebuilt, broken and regenerated, that Gregory Buchakjian has undertaken an artistic project and a research devoted to abandoned dwellings.

Disclosing the survey of 744 buildings, the collection of archives and testimonies, a PhD thesis and the creation of photographic tableaux with the subjects surrounded by sagging furniture and mounds of rubbish, the process that constitutes the present book proposes new perspectives towards the city as well as instruments to reclaim it at times it is confronted with various forms of violence.

Format: 24 cm x 28 cm, 240 pages, 215 photographs and reproductions (colored and black & white), English

Published: November 2018

(Also available in French)

Text by Kevin Jones
Poems by Salah Stétié

Since the late 1960s, Chaouki Choukini has developed an astoundingly consistent aesthetic worldview.

His sculptural works, mainly in wood but occasionally in marble or stone, range from horizontal Lieux and Paysages to upright, anthropomorphic, almost totemic figures.

At first glance, the works may appear somewhat primitivist. A closer look, however, reveals a sophisticated interrogation of organic and mechanical worlds, where curvaceous mounds are punctuated by a regiment of pegs, or undulating bases bristle with teeth-like crags.

Discursively, Choukini layers an eerie latency into his works: mazes of slits, recesses, and multi-level cavities evoke some vanished human presence on the tense horizon line; the ubiquitous “cord” is a taut yet silent marker of dormant sound. Choukini is tantalizingly dark.

His is a world of brooding, empty spaces, where narratives struggle to tell themselves, and everything is in suspense.

Format: 24.7 cm x 17.7 cm, 168 pages, English

Published: December 2019

Texts by Venetia Porter, Dr Maha Azizé Sultan and a conversation with Mazen Kerbage

Laure Ghorayeb is a self-taught Lebanese artist born in 1931 in the village of Deir al-Qamar.

She first started out as a cultural journalist/critic and a poet and has worked at several magazines
including Shi’r, L’Orient, Le Jour and Annahar.

Currently known for her intricate and detailed ink drawings, Ghorayeb’s work represents chronicles of
her life as well as events and people that have had an impact on her such as the Lebanese civil wars and members of her family.

This publication looks back on her transition from writer to painter. “Laure Ghorayeb: Black on White” is the second publication in the Saradar Collection x Kaph Books series and includes texts by Venetia Porter and Dr. Maha Azizé Sultan as well as a conversation between the artist and her son Mazen Kerbage.

Format: 21 cm x 27 cm, 236 pages, English / Arabic

Published: December 2019

Edited by Clémence Cottard Hachem and Nour Salamé

With 40 contributors, including: Walid Sadek, Yasmine Chemali, Jacques Aswad, Fouad ElKoury, Christine Khouri, Gregory Buchakjian, François Cheval, Oliver Rohe, Bernard Khoury, Vartan Avakian, Ghada Waked, Lévon Nordikian,… The approach of this publication is both alternative and transversal.

With the collection of possible essays, it proposes - in order to better question it - a wide arborescence on the evolution of photographic attitudes in Lebanon since the arrival of its first photographic explorers until its recent artistic usages and practices.

On Photography in Lebanon is a book in which forty contributors share their perspectives on photography in Lebanon, evoking its equally numerous forms of existence.

Examining techniques, practices, uses, objects, images, histories, and artistic approaches, this publication presents 380 photographs produced between the end of the 19th century and the present day.

Format: 24 cm x 29 cm, 384 pages, English

Published: October 2018

(Also available in French)

Co-edition with Louvre Abu Dhabi and Musée du Quai Branly

The catalogue is both a reflection of the exhibition and a publication that acts as a reference, with its assessment of the questions and thinking that arise from the research carried out for this project.

It is not encyclopedic on the subject of the first photography practices in the world, however it provides a certain number of historical and technical elements, which gives an understanding of the geopolitical circumstances in which photography was introduced then practiced in the different geographic areas of the world.

This publication puts forward a global and documented
vision of the practice of photography in the first decades of the medium, highlighting the key elements and chronological boundaries of the appropriation of photography outside of Europe.

The publication also aims to present the work of local photographers and studios, in showing certain “original images” made in a particular region, while also outlining the role played by governments in power in the development and appropriation of
this modern medium on a local scale.

The publication is made up of an essay by the curator introducing the intention of the exhibition and the main lines of thought, two essays by specialists of Asian and Middle Eastern photography, and a translation of Emir Abdelkader selection of texts on photography with commentary.

This publication gives prominence to the works,
coming mainly from the Musée du Quai Branly collection, and also the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and the Musée Guimet.

The quality of the approximate 100 reproductions reveal the diversity of photographic objects presented in the exhibition (daguerreotypes,
prints, albums, negatives).

It also includes bibliographic entries of the
photographers represented in the exhibition, entries for works of the exhibition, and a geo-historical chronology.

Format: 24 cm x 28.5 cm, 192 pages, 94 photographs and reproductions (colored and black & white), English

Published: April 2019

(Also available in French and Arabic)