Ticking eyes that never sleep, little lenses that see it all, a flickering little red light underneath them, constantly recording, constantly watching.

These birds of a new kind flock our skies and spread their wings against the clouds. Their nests lay on long poles and hold within them sets of other, smaller, watching eyes.

Cameras, drones, satellites, or whatever latest technology that’s been added to the lot, they are everywhere, watching everyone, an integrated part of today’s reality.

It’s in these “vision machines” that Tagreed Darghouth has placed her interest, in a new series, that comes after and as an understandable continuation of her ardent critique of war weaponry and nuclear projects. Indeed, from her various series denouncing socio-cultural phenomena in her native Lebanon, to Vision Machines, Will you see me better now?, it is safe to say that Darghouth’s artistic project is one that is both politically and socially engaged. For Darghouth, and in a reference to Picasso, artists are warriors, fighters, whose battlefield is the world and weapon, art. read more

Born in 1979, Saida, Lebanon, Tagreed Darghouth earned a diploma in art education and studied fine arts at the Lebanese University in Beirut. She then went on to study space art at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Tagreed’s social and political themes draw attention to hidden forms of violence and misconception of the other. For example, in her “Canticle of Death” exhibition, 2011, her paintings drew attention to the irony of the contrast between the colorful innuendos given to weapons of mass destruction and their lethal purposes. 

Tagreed has exhibited in solo and group shows that have taken her all over the globe from Singapore, Buenos Aires, Paris, Istanbul, Dubai, London, Munich, Miami, New York and Brussels. She attended Ayloul's summer academy for young Arab artists at Darat al Funun, directed by artist Marwan Kassab Bashi, in Amman, Jordan in 2001. She currently works and lives in Beirut, Lebanon.