AHMAD GHOSSEIN

A Sealed Gallon & for various uses

Resin, Copper, Variable size, 2023

How certain objects take on different uses—especially during the economic crisis in Beirut, is at the heart of this work. Two pieces intersect here because of their relevance and the way their functions and the needs they respond to have changed.

I often wonder about the habit in Lebanon of never throwing away something we might need later. The history of objects takes on a different context, one that shifts the meaning of what something is and what it can be used for.

A chair, for example, is a chair, but it can also serve as a warning or a protective marker when placed over a large pothole in the middle of the street, alerting drivers to steer clear. Or a water bottle might be repurposed as a container for gasoline during shortages at fuel stations.

I got used to anticipating the absurd events that would happen to me on a daily basis, like my desperate attempt to find gasoline for my car during the fuel crisis.

 I went to the ‘underground’ black market in Dahyeh, Beirut’s southern suburbs. I bought a gallon of gasoline, “sealed” as the young seller told me. It’s an “original” apparently. How strange is this word in this context? I went with him to see how he seals gallons, fills them up and brings them to his clients,  fresh out of the black market. A sealed water gallon filled with gasoline in a country where no water reaches the houses, and no gasoline reaches the people.

I ruminate over the different shapes and sizes of the plastic bottle cut in half

and the short tube tied to it. It has become a tool to drip the gasoline into the fuel inlet.

Almost no car today is without this handy tool.

Part of Serotonin, Benzine, and a Renegade Body, Solo Show, Marfa Gallery