Home Participants 25th Biennale of Sydney (2026) Lamia Joreige

Lamia Joreige

Front to back: Dorothy Cross, Red Road, 2021. Presentation at the 25th Biennale of Sydney was made possible with generous support from Culture Ireland. Courtesy of the artist © Dorothy Cross, Kerlin Gallery, Dublin and Frith Street Gallery, London. Lamia Joreige, Uncertain Times - War diaries, 2026. Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney and Rubaiya Qatar, Qatar Museums. Research & Design Assitant: Mayssa El Kho. Archival documents, sources, and copyrights: American University of Beirut/Library Archives; Auckland War Memorial Museum; Australian War Memorial; Başkanlık Osmanlı Arşivi, Istanbul; Imperial War Museum, U.K.; Institute of Palestinian Studies; Library of Congress; State Library of New South Wales; Victorian Collections/Melbourne Legacy; Wikimedia Commons. Courtesy of the artist © Lamia Joreige. Installation view, 25th Biennale of Sydney, Rememory, 2026, Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney. Photograph: David James

Lamia Joreige is a Beirut-based visual artist and filmmaker whose work explores history, memory and storytelling through archival materials and fiction, examining time and its traces. Her multidisciplinary practice—spanning drawings, paintings, sculptures, videos and large-scale multimedia installations—is rooted in her country’s experience. Reflecting on the Lebanese wars and their aftermath as well as broader human experiences, connecting the personal and the collective, Joreige’s work explores time, the recordings of its trace, and its effects on us. Her commitment to accessible, socially engaged art underpins her entire practice.

Lamia Joreige, Uncertain Times – War diaries, 2026. Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney and Rubaiya Qatar, Qatar Museums. Research & Design Assitant: Mayssa El Kho. Archival documents, sources, and copyrights: American University of Beirut/Library Archives; Auckland War Memorial Museum; Australian War Memorial; Başkanlık Osmanlı Arşivi, Istanbul; Imperial War Museum, U.K.; Institute of Palestinian Studies; Library of Congress; State Library of New South Wales; Victorian Collections/Melbourne Legacy; Wikimedia Commons. Courtesy of the artist © Lamia Joreige. Installation view, 25th Biennale of Sydney, Rememory, 2026, Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney. Photograph: David James.

Lamia Joreige

Born 1972, Lebanon

Lives and works in Beirut, Lebanon

Uncertain Times – War Diaries 2026

mixed media

Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney and Rubaiya Qatar, Qatar Museums Authority

Courtesy of the artist

This is the newest chapter of Lamia Joreige’s larger, ever adaptable Uncertain Times project, initiated in 2017. Uncertain Times – War Diaries looks at the Levant, during World War I. Combining research material, photographs, first-hand accounts, maps as well as her own drawings and notes, Joreige creates a montage-like chronicle of war and the changing landscape in this region between 1914 and 1919.

Uncertain Times – War Diaries unfolds like a frieze, more poetic than periodic. In this iteration, Joreige connects the personal diary of a Jerusalemite soldier from her first chapter, Mapping a transformation (2022), to the diaries of Australian soldiers who fought in the Levant as part of the Allied forces during World War I. Compiling personal and military accounts, as well as paintings made by soldiers deployed in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Egypt, Joreige connects stories and makes visual associations across seemingly disparate narratives. This non-linear retelling distils the period’s socio-cultural tumult which still reverberates in the region today.

Research & Design Assistant

Mayssa El Khoury

Archival documents sources and copyrights Australian War Memorial

Letters from James Augustus Sweeny Diary of Rupert Major Jones

Edward Randolf Cleaver postcard & Letters 1914

Front covers of the Australian Imperial Force Unit War Diary, 15th Infantry Brigade, December 1917: January 1918; May 1918 Troops embarking at Port Melbourne on A40 HMAT Ceramic.

Australian Soldiers landing on Gallipoli. 25 April 1915, by Bean, Charles Edwin Woodrow (C E W)

The bombardment of the Turkish forts. Original illustration published by H W Wilson

El Arish by Georges Lambert Topographical sketch, Romani

Australian Light Horseman looking at the abandoned Turkish equipment after the Battle of Romani

Portrait of Lieutenant Colonel (Lt Col) Leslie C Maygar VC DSO VD, Commanding

Map of Gallipoli from Beersheba Battle of Romani, 4 August 1916

Gaza, Palestine. 1917-11. The main street of the town after it had been

captured from the Turkish

Palestine, 1917-10. Australian light horse advancing on Beersheba

4th Light Horse Regiment bivouacs and horse lines at Khan Yunis. Beersheba, Palestine 1917-11. Beersheba’s main street shortly after its capture by Allenby’s forces

Photograph of the Shellal Mosaic, 1917 Shellal mosaic fragment on site- floor Shellal mosaic before cleaning on site Men excavating Shellal mosaic

State Library of New South Wales

World War I map of the northern Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, Arabia, Palestine and the the Mediterranean Sea: showing the main Turkish advances, on Kantara and Nakhl-Suez.

William Peterson sketches of Turkish positions, 9 August 1916 (Mitchell Library)

At Romani – in Souvenir of Sinai & Palestine, photograph album 1916-1917 / by Trooper J. Ellis

Album of photographs taken in France and Palestine, 1917-1918 / James Francis Hurley : Ruins of Gaza, Palestine Showing two men in a ruined building with arcades.

Part of Souvenir of Sinai & Palestine, photograph album, between 1916-1917 by Trooper J. Ellis / Turkish Mine “Before”; Turkish Mine “After”; Sniping at the battle of Romani; Viaduct “Before”; Viaduct “After”.

Auckland War Memorial Museum

Final view of stores burning on the shore on 20 December 1915 as H.M.S. Cornwallis departs – Lawrence Gillet collection.

Victorian Collections / Melbourne Legacy

Postcard, Gallipoli, troops landing at Gaba Tepe, 1915

Artist drawing of the Gallipoli peninsula and the Asiatic shore

Imperial War Museum, U.K.

The second battle of Gaza, April 1917 / IWM (Q 56502) Watercolor by James Mc Bey / Kuneitra 1st October 1918 (Australian Light Horse)

Watercolor by James Mc Bey / Damascus October 1918 (Australian Light Horse)

Watercolor by James Mc Bey / July 1918 / The Light Horse Resting Watercolor by James Mc Bey / Damascus 4 October 1918 (Australian Light Horse)

Library of Congress

Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, Palestine / Marian S. Carson

General Allenby walking through the Jaffa Gate / Manuscript Division

(Papers of John D. Whiting)

Başkanlık Osmanlı Arşivi, Istanbul

The regulation about how the Locust Commissions should act, dated 13 January 1914 (in Ottoman)

Institute of Palestinian Studies

Excerpts from the Diary of Ihsan Turjman

Wikimedia Commons

Volunteer Arab Camel Corps from S. Arabia leaving for the Front, 1916.

American University of Beirut/Library Archives.

Battle of Megiddo, 1918, WWI Photo Album, Archives and Special Collections

Special Thanks

Hoor Al-Qasimi; Alicia Hollier; Noah Bennett; Sandra Dagher; Anthea Gunn