Since 2010, audiovisual artist and curator Firas El Hallak has been organising and filming experimental sessions in the unfinished Dome of the Rachid Karami International Fair in Tripoli, Lebanon. Designed in 1962 by renowned Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, the Dome never fulfilled its intended purpose and remains a relic of unrealized potential, immersed in neglect. When the Lebanese Civil War broke out, construction stopped, leaving the space acoustically untreated and creating a rare and haunting reverberation within its concrete walls.
The Dome Sessions can be experienced as an installation from Friday to Sunday. With this project, El Hallak uses the Dome as a landmark to evoke both told and untold stories of Tripoli through auditory experiments blending sound, space, and memory.