Urban Seasons

I grew up in Beirut, a city full of contradictions. A city of summer. As I write this text, it is even 20ºC in December. Fifteen months ago, I was awarded a research residency in Montreal, where I survived the coarse winter, as residents like to call it. During my stay, I put to the test every notion, concept, idea I had believed in or were convinced of – including the notion of the cold. Everything is relative when you want to stay in a place you call Home. I walked the streets of Montreal back and forth hundreds of time times hundred, in the bitterest cold, without complaining, not once. Metro lines, underground cities, the faces of the people, and even the snow and ice covering the streets became a familiar aspect of my life to which I still yearn. Seven month after my departure, Montreal is still my Home – a place of longing and belonging. And where life chose Beirut as a city where I was born and grew up, my heart and mind chose Montreal. The Portuguese call this "Saudade", a deep emotional state that carries an infinite emotion to some-thing, -place, -person that once were, but that will probably never return. Montreal provokes a bittersweet shiver in the core of my stomach, for I know deep inside I might never return there. Urban Seasons is a celebration of this feeling.