Moments for Lebanon Returns to Paris, Turning Art Into an Act of Solidarity

For many Lebanese living abroad, home rarely exists as a single place. It lives in fragments, in a family photograph or perhaps in a scent that instantly transports you back to childhood.

Sometimes it exists through a familiar song playing unexpectedly in another city. A conversation, a recipe, a building, a memory. Pieces collected over time and carried across borders.

That idea sits at the heart of Moments for Lebanon, the Paris-based art and humanitarian initiative returning this June for its second edition. Bringing together artists, collectors and members of the Lebanese diaspora, the event uses art as a way to support communities in Lebanon while creating space for reflection on memory, identity and belonging.

Following a successful first edition in 2024, which welcomed around 1,000 visitors and raised €73,000 for Lebanese charities, Moments for Lebanon is once again transforming creativity into collective action. This year's edition will take place from June 5 to 7 at Galerie Au Roi in Paris' 11th arrondissement.

The exhibition, titled Fragments of Memorabilia, explores the ways in which memory shapes our understanding of home. For those living between countries, cultures and identities, belonging is often fluid rather than fixed. It can be found in objects, rituals, language, architecture, photographs and emotions that remain long after physical distance has set in.

It's a theme that feels particularly resonant for Lebanon and its global diaspora.

More than 90 artists from around the world will participate in this year's exhibition, contributing over 140 works spanning photography, painting, illustration, installation and mixed media.

Among the participating artists are names including Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Dima Srouji, Zena Assi, Tom Young, Diana Bou Salman, Yasmina Hilal and many others whose practices explore questions of place, memory and cultural identity.

The sale will also feature works by acclaimed photographers Fouad El Khoury and Rania Matar, whose work has long documented the complexity, beauty and emotional landscape of Lebanon and its people.

At the centre of the exhibition is a collective installation titled Fragments, bringing together more than 100 small-scale works into a single composition. Individually, each piece tells its own story. Together, they create a visual conversation about memory, displacement, resilience and home.

Visitors will also be able to purchase larger works, with the exhibition extending beyond the gallery through live programming and performances throughout the weekend. Following the event, the catalogue will remain available online for two additional months, allowing supporters around the world to continue contributing to the initiative.

What makes Moments for Lebanon particularly meaningful is that every artwork sold carries an impact beyond the gallery walls. All proceeds from the exhibition will support four organisations providing essential humanitarian assistance across Lebanon: Beit El Baraka, Lebanese Red Cross, arcenciel and Offrejoie.

Together, these organisations provide food assistance, healthcare, shelter, disability support, education and emergency relief to vulnerable communities affected by displacement and ongoing instability throughout the country.

At a time when headlines move quickly and attention often shifts elsewhere, initiatives like Moments for Lebanon serve as a reminder that solidarity can take many forms. Sometimes it looks like a donation, sometimes ike a photograph and sometimes it looks like a room filled with people who may live thousands of kilometres away from Lebanon but continue to carry pieces of it with them every day.

That is what we believe makes this exhibition so moving: it reminds us that memory is not passive but is something we preserve, share and pass on. Through art, those fragments become stories. Through community, those stories become action. And through collective effort, they become hope.

More on Instagram, @Moments_____forlebanon