The last survivors guardians of a thousands-year-old land

Equipped with a photographic chamber with an optic dating from 1873, Jack Dabaghian undertook a tour of the various cedar reserves of the country to photograph the last survivors among these proud guardians of this thousands-year-old land. He then gathered a set of his photos in an artist’s book, Sentinels, published in two limited editions (both designed and produced at -scope Ateliers): 60 tailor-bound books and their boxes, signed and numbered, and 16 art books printed on enhanced matt paper with archival inks, and bound around pieces of Cedar wood on the front and back covers. Highlighting the aura of strength and sacredness that emanate from these cedars, almost portrayed as human figures, Dabaghian’s images have a (deliberately) outdated aesthetic, and are accompanied by a sensitive and poetic text by photography historian Clémence Cottard Hachem.

The result is an art book through which the artist-photographer seeks to both alert on the threat of the disappearance of this immemorial tree and bring a message of anchoring and hope through what it represents: resistance, splendor and antiquity of Lebanon.