The holidays' fragmented memories: Where to be this weekend in the Middle East

Baudelaire must have written his theory of the self-tormentor about people crazy enough to go out in big cities during the holidays. It's busy, loud and suffocating, and it feels both cold and stuffy at once. Yet somehow, amidst everything, it creates a sense of community in all of us.

Maybe it's decades of history in our bodies connecting us, or perhaps it's the stories our roads carry. This week's exhibitions attempt to answer the question.

Every Thursday, L’Orient Today, in partnership with The MYM Agenda, guides you through events across the Middle East that are actually worth your time.

What to do this weekend in Beirut:

If you're still scrambling to find last-minute Christmas presents (aren't we all?), Art Scene Gallery in Gemmayzeh is holding a Christmas edition of its "Little But Loud" art fair. You have until Jan. 7 to buy art pieces and special holiday prices for your loved ones, or to keep the best ones for yourself.

For more information, click here.

This Thursday, Mira al-Khalil unveils her newest exhibition, "Holiday Inn Beirut," at Kalim Bechara Art Gallery in Downtown Beirut.

Lebanon's streets still carry the memories of its 15-year Civil War, and Beirut's iconic Holiday Inn might be carrying much of that weight. Khalil chose to take one of the city's most charged architectural landmarks through scenes of friendship, introspection and memory.

For more information, click here.

Fann À Porter invites you into an exhibition where art is carried, gathered and remembered.

Through found materials, images and personal archives, the artists in "Printed Matter" transform everyday remnants into powerful witnesses of memory, war and change.

Cynthia Zahar’s "Shuhud" installations layer travel documents, maps, photographs and objects worn by time that tell the unseen stories we carry with us.

George Yammine has collected stray bullets scattered across cities, a reminder of his childhood in Lebanon in the late 1980s. He reimagines the power of a bullet and its meaning in his installations.

For more information, click here.

What to do this weekend in Cairo:

Painter Essam Alaa, like Charles Baudelaire, describes himself as self-tormented. He unveils his latest exhibition, "The Knife and the Apple," at Mashrabia Gallery, highlighting the fine line between submission and rebellion.

Alaa relishes in the insufferable, creating worlds where his characters find creativity and color even through the pain of everyday life. Or in the words of his muse Baudelaire, "So as not to feel Time's horrible burden that breaks your shoulders and bows you down, you must get drunk without ceasing."

For more information, click here.

What to do this weekend in Amman:

Tunisian artist Emna Zghal, in her solo exhibition “The Night Shall Clear,” showing at Jacaranda Images, explores what it means to be a watermelon.

Initially launched in 2014, Zghal focused on watermelon as a lens for experiencing nature. More recently, she was inspired by its use in Palestinian movements, citing the land's ancient heritage.

For more information, click here.

Didn't find what you were looking for? Stay up to date with all these events and more everywhere in the Arab world through the MYM Agenda, available on our website here.