Marfa’ is pleased to announce As I Weep, Lamia Joreige’s third solo exhibition at the gallery, opening on June 25, 2026.
The exhibition continues Joreige’s long-term project Uncertain Times, encompassing ongoing research exploring the period between the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the French and British Mandates in Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine (1913–1921). Utilizing extensive archival investigation and artistic intervention, As I Weep is a contemporary reflection on a decisive historical moment – the political, social, and territorial consequences of which continue to shape the region today. Moving between individual experiences and collective histories, Joreige examines how narratives of the past are constructed, circulated, and reinterpreted, and how they remain embedded in present-day realities. Her non-linear account resists fixed interpretation or singular truth.
As part of the exhibition, Joreige presents the historical frieze Uncertain Times – War Diaries, originally commissioned for and presented at the 25th Sydney Biennial curated by Hoor Al Qasimi. Continuing her research on this pivotal period, the work draws from the diaries of Australian soldiers who fought in the Levant as part of the Allied forces during World War I. Combining her own drawings and notes with photographs, maps, soldiers’ personal and military accounts, as well as paintings produced during their deployment in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, Joreige creates a montage-like chronicle of war, and of a landscape undergoing profound transformation between 1914 and 1919.
The work unfolds like a historical frieze yet is more poetic than periodic. The artist connects stories and makes visual associations across seemingly disparate narratives. This non-linear retelling distills the period’s socio-cultural tumult which still reverberates in the region today.

The exhibition also includes a painting-sculpture, which revisits the sixth century Byzantine Shellal Mosaic, originally located a few kilometers from Gaza. It was unearthed by Australian troops in 1917 and subsequently transported to Australia. The mosaic has been on display, embedded within a wall of Canberra’s Australian War Memorial since 1940 – far from its original archaeological and geographical context.

At once conceptual and materially grounded, Joreige’s work reflects on the mosaic’s displacement and the ethical complexities surrounding restitution. If returning the fragile object risks its destruction, how—and to whom—might it be returned when the land from which it was taken has itself been dispossessed? Departing from the mosaic’s original form and surviving fragments, the work operates through shifts in scale, material, representation, and display. The linen canvas alludes to the technique used to lift the mosaic off the ground in 1917, while its palette of colors is reconstructed from a historical photograph of the original.
During the early stage of her research in 2017, Joreige read the diary of a young Jerusalemite soldier in the Ottoman army written in 1915 and 1916. She then began developing it into script for a feature film Jerusalem: The Diary of Ihsan Turjman.  Casting for a Film, Ihsan’s Diary, records the casting process for the lead roles in this upcoming work. In a film studio, Palestinian and Lebanese actors perform scenes from the script, with varying repetitions and interpretations. These are interrupted by discussions with the director on the characters and on Jerusalem – a city inaccessible to them. They reflect on contemporary realities in Palestine and Lebanon, drawing parallels between two distinct historical moments. An animated drawing of Jerusalem gradually unfolds in the background, forming a layered visual meditation on absence and representation.
For over a year, Joreige had been unable to cry as she witnessed the ongoing violence and devastation unfolding across our region. While pursuing her research for Uncertain Times in various libraries in London, she encountered rare manuscripts, maps and documents –fragments of history, fragile remnants of a not-so-distant past: accounts of the Paris peace conference, territorial negotiations, Zionist proposals and Palestinian petitions, the original Sykes–Picot map. Unexpectedly, she began to cry. Tears fell onto the fragile paper, erasing words, smudging lines, and blurring borders, thus reshaping them into unstable geographies and reimagined histories. These works make up the series As I Weep, which gives its title to the exhibition.
Together, the works in the exhibition As I Weep trace the transformation and circulation of people, objects, images, and narratives across periods of profound political upheaval. Moving between archival research and artistic intervention, Joreige revisits the formation of borders, identities, and historical narratives, the consequences of which continue to structure the present.