Lebanese artist Tanja Van Deer was commissioned by the American University in Beirut to create a series of works to revive the Diana Tamari Sabbagh building, otherwise known as the Medical Building.

This week, Tanja revealed her first work in the series  - a string art mural that encompasses 6 meters in length, 2000+ nails and over 2 kilometers of thread. Deep, rich colors mesh into one another seamlessly spelling out the quote "Science is Magic that Works".

As an AUB graduate, I can attest to the fact that the university's departments aren't the most glamorous and little art adorns walls outside the administrative buildings. Revitalizing interventions like Tanja's are desperately needed.

For the lack of a better term, she appears to have nailed it.

In Tanja's words:

One of the main purposes of the Diana Tamari Sabbagh Building is that it houses labs where medical students conduct their research. Since research is often a laborous task which ultimately produces a clean solution, I thought that nail-string art reflected that process in the sense that the overlapping string seems chaotic/senseless/jumbled up but the final result (the words inscribed) are clear cut and meaningful.

Both research and string art reflect a sort of trial and error approach which initially make little sense to both the artist and the scientist but which eventually and elegantly produce something meaningful." 




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