Lebanese Artist Turns Shrapnel into Sculptures

Charles Nassar has created numerous sculptures of people, including a man milking a cow and a woman baking bread. (AFP)
Charles Nassar has created numerous sculptures of people, including a man milking a cow and a woman baking bread. (AFP)
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Lebanese Artist Turns Shrapnel into Sculptures

Charles Nassar has created numerous sculptures of people, including a man milking a cow and a woman baking bread. (AFP)
Charles Nassar has created numerous sculptures of people, including a man milking a cow and a woman baking bread. (AFP)

There is a violinist, a farmer tilling his field, and a cockerel with a propeller for a head. All were once rockets, artillery shells, or bullets falling on Lebanon's battlefields.

Artist Charles Nassar has been transforming their dark, wrangled remains into sculptures to celebrate tradition and memory, said an AFP report Friday.

"I hate shrapnel, but I also love it at the same time," said the 54-year-old with a neat salt-and-pepper beard, in a garden south of Beirut.

A series of conflicts have rocked the tiny multi-confessional country in recent decades.

Metal rained down during the 1975-1990 civil war, the 2006 conflict between Lebanese Hezbollah party and Israel, and during clashes in a Palestinian camp the following year.

Nassar was forced to flee Lebanon during the civil war, and his grandmother was killed in the violence.

But she and other characters of the artist's past live on, displayed in the nooks and crannies of his garden in the village of Remhala.

In one corner, a metal version of his grandmother collects snails, while his father milks a cow nearby.

In another sculpture, a woman bakes crispy flatbread slapped inside a traditional outdoor stove.

"The shrapnel takes on shapes in my mind... They guide me to what I should do with them," said the artist, according to AFP.

Nassar first created his metal sculptures in Beirut, but after the war he decided to display them on land he owned in Remhala.

He has worked the war detritus into 250 creations so far, selling 150 that he is now working to replace.

"I don't want to remind people of war," Nassar said.

Instead, the idea is that "anybody who was bothered by an artillery shell starts to like it," he added.

"I'm trying to turn black into white, something negative into something positive."



Smoke From Canadian Fires Reaches Europe, Says EU Climate Monitor

 This photo provided by the Manitoba government shows wildfires in Flin Flon, Manitoba, Canada on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (Manitoba government via AP)
This photo provided by the Manitoba government shows wildfires in Flin Flon, Manitoba, Canada on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (Manitoba government via AP)
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Smoke From Canadian Fires Reaches Europe, Says EU Climate Monitor

 This photo provided by the Manitoba government shows wildfires in Flin Flon, Manitoba, Canada on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (Manitoba government via AP)
This photo provided by the Manitoba government shows wildfires in Flin Flon, Manitoba, Canada on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (Manitoba government via AP)

Heavy smoke from intense wildfires in Canada has reached northwestern Europe, the European Union's climate monitoring service said on Tuesday.

The huge plumes are at very high altitude and do not pose an immediate health risk, it said in a statement.

"Smoke originating from the wildfires in the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan has been transported across the Atlantic," the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) said.

Satellites tracked the smoke in mid-May, with some plumes reaching as far east as Greece and the eastern Mediterranean.

"A second, much larger, smoke plume crossed the Atlantic during the last week of May, reaching northwestern parts of Europe on June 1," CAMS said.

Additional plumes are expected to shade the continent in the coming days.

Wildfire smoke is comprised of gaseous pollutants such as carbon monoxide, along with water vapor and particle pollution, which can be particularly hazardous to health.

A high concentration of carbon monoxide is expected to pass over northwestern France, including the Paris Basin, on Tuesday.

The high-altitude smoke headed for Europe is not expected to have a significant impact on surface air quality, but is likely to result in hazy skies and reddish-orange sunsets.

Manitoba in central Canada is experiencing its worst start to the fire season in years due to drought, and Saskatchewan to the west declared a state of emergency at the end of May, evacuating thousands of residents.

"Central regions of Canada have experienced a very intense few weeks in terms of wildfire emissions," said Mark Parrington, scientific director at CAMS.

Canadian authorities have forecast a more intense fire season than usual this summer in central and western Canada, due in particular to severe or extreme drought.

Elsewhere, extensive forest fires have been raging in Russia's Far Eastern Federal District since early April, particularly east of Lake Baikal, generating carbon emissions of around 35 million tons, Copernicus reported.