Gallery 400

English transcript (PDF)

Arabic transcript (PDF)
اقرأ النص باللغة العربية

Growing up, I ate lunch with my maternal grandparents every other Sunday. They lived in a large, cold apartment in Beirut and showed their affection in a restrained manner, so I spent most of my time sitting in a chair, trying to behave. From that chair I could see hanging on the wall the framed photograph of a man who did not look like anyone in my family. There was also a bright yellow book, written in German (a language no one in my family spoke), sitting on a shelf among a pile of other books.

Years later, I went back to that apartment to help my parents move its contents into storage. When taking down the photograph, I noticed that it was signed on the back by a "Baron Max von Oppenheim." I opened the yellow book and found several documents. One was a postcard of what looked like the sculpture of a bird sent by von Oppenheim to Faik Borkhoche, my great-grandfather. Another was a photograph, taken in Tell Halaf in 1929, of my great-grandfather holding a snake. I was confused. How did memorabilia belonging to a member of the German nobility come to be in the dining room of a relatively quiet Lebanese family, and what was my great-grandfather's connection to it? My mother's answer was simple and direct: "It is all a spy story." This is how it goes . . .

—Rayyane Tabet

Listen to the artist tell the full story above.
See the personal objects belonging to Faik Borkhoche in the guide to the exhibition.