BEIRUT EXPLOSION — 2020heroes

Prime Minister Beirut Explosion

4th of August 2020

I was intrigued by the colour of the explosion, Burgundy. When working wiht Flo Pawley, PDP 2nd year we wanted to recreate the colours, somewhat striking, of the explosion. I wanted to make a cotton or felt explosion and had flashing lights underneath, but the lights didn’t really work, they looked like fairy lights and didn’t convey the devastating impact of the explosion. So we decided against it. We wanted to add bits of sharpnels,but couldn’t for safety reasons so we made a “scrappy”look using cardboard and torn felt. A plastic top hat was used as the base.

The base.

Nathalie in rehearsal

The makeup look by Stefan Lin

Beirut Explosion was so unjust, it made me wonder what we had done to deserve this? It was again an accident caused by the neglecting of a cargo of 2,750 tonnes of amonium nitrate. It had been stored in a warehouse without proper safety measures for the previous six years... There had been six years to avoid this!!!!

This is the effect with light, not looking good...

Some bits has fallen off during the transport, that teacup handle and a few things at the bottom.
Although the piece was incredibly fragile, we managed to use it without damage and It matched really well with the headpiece.

For the teapot, I worked with Elin Hughes. Just like the hat we wanted to express the devastation after the explosion. The moments after when all is broken, all hope is lost, alarms are ringing, cries and screams are heard.

Sharpnels and bits of leftover and broken ceramics was a good way of rendering that effect.We also used bits of metal wire, cement and bits of teacups...
I unfortunately have lost all my process pictures, due to my phone being broken in february.