rana haddad . pierre hage boutros x l’atelier de recherche | alba x ccf . cultural dialogue in the garden of deafness . espace des lettres | beirut | lebanon . 10 / 2001

L'Orient Le Jour is the leading daily French newspaper in Lebanon. In normal circumstances, the newspaper estimated an average of 4,000 unsold newspaper copies a day. It was readily assumed that there would be an increase in sales during this month, as more people would be driven to read the French paper.

We decided to put this assumption to the "physical" test. For each of the 15 days of this specific month, we installed a seesaw counterweight balances and a dated sandbag, each bag weighing the average of 4000 unsold newspaper copies.

At the end of each day, we would receive and place the unsold leftover papers on the other side of the scale, visibly assessing the truthfulness of the assumption.

Day by day, it became apparent that less and less issues were being sold, as each sandbag was lifted higher on the scale than the day before. However, we were not able to complete the installation to the fullest of the 15 days. Distraught by the obvious results, the L'Orient Le Jour decided to stop delivering the unsold papers for vague reasons. Which made the outcome even more obvious.