AGENDA

“A deafening clattering roared as the doors opened into what seemed to be an endless hall. My father held my hand as we stepped into a sea of weaving looms that took up every inch of the room. At six years old, the noise was like nothing I had heard before, or and nothing I have heard since… My hands instinctively covered my ears, but my eyes were transfixed, and I was mesmerized.

To this day, this childhood memory remains vivid in my mind.

Many years later, I was compelled to return to the now-closed “Spinning & Weaving Industrial Company”, my family’s factory, and to revisit my lucid yet ambiguous memories.
I found myself picking up bits and pieces, holding onto a past so far gone, yet so clear in my mind. These fragments told the story of my family’s legacy. As I sorted through these precious relics, I felt an unyielding urge to examine the stitches in the fabric of my past: to investigate the tools, the threads, the stitches that made up the formidable textiles so pivotal in my history, and to explore how cloth itself is key to History itself.

This project pays tribute to a personal heritage, honoring a family inheritance of a weaving factory. It is the story of my venture, a journey through many periods, exploring the process of weaving, integrating collected pieces along the way, describing my perception of the space, its physicality, and its emotional impact on me. I felt the need to pay tribute to the memory of this factory. As I integrated the weaving process into my paintings, I envisioned myself walking the path of my forefathers, intertwining my past and my future.”

- Leila Jabre Jureidini

“What is to work with love? It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.”

- Gibran Khalil Gibran

Leila Jabre Jureidini was born in Lebanon in 1963 and is currently based in Beirut.
After studying graphic design at the ESAG in Paris, she obtained a degree in Fine Arts and Communications Design from Parsons the New School of Design in New York. Jureidini also studied sociology and anthropology at the Sorbonne University, and has worked as a designer for many years both in France and in the USA.

“Filiation” is the third solo exhibition for the artist with Galerie Janine Rubeiz, where she previously held two solo shows: “Fragments” in 2012, and “Freedom Fighters” in 2019.
She also took part in several group exhibitions with the gallery: “Clin d’oeil” (2014), “October 17, 2019” (2019), “Beirut 2020” (2020), “Visions of Today” and “Wajihāt” (2021), and “Celebrating Painting” in 2022. Jureidini also held an exhibition with Virginie Corm, titled “The Undoing” in 2014.

Since 2008, her work has been included in several exhibitions in London, Paris and Beirut, such as Artspot RMB Gallery, Beirut Art Fair, Parallax Art Fair, Sursock Museum’s 30th and 31st Salon d’Automne, where she received a ‘’Mention Spéciale du Jury’’ in 2012.
Her work in sculpture is part of the permanent collection of the Sursock Museum, where it was on display as part of the museum’s permanent exhibition after its reopening in 2015.