Nearly six months ago, the Lebanese capital Beirut was left shaking under the force of a massive explosion. As the dust settled, more than half the city's buildings were damaged, and more than 200 people eventually passed away. The tally of those injured was in the thousands.
Then Prime Minister Hassan Diab said the blast had been caused by improper storage of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate in the port of Beirut. The explosion that caused billions of dollars worth of property damage also led to the resignation of the entire Lebanese government amid widespread public fury.
And gradually, as the city began its arduous journey back to normalcy, global attention shifted onto other news stories. Now however, the Beruit blast is back in focus for a very different reason. A ring by jewellery designer Nada Ghazal is going viral, and social media users certainly have a lot to say.
The artist who escaped the blast even as her workshop was destroyed told Forbes in a recent interview that it was a representation of the resilient nature of Lebanese people, and the fact that Beruit was striving to rise again, in spite of all challenges.
"I created Fuse Rock a few months back while Lebanon was, as it still is, going through one of its toughest times. I wanted to feel strong, to be defiant, to stand up despite it all. I needed to garner my strength and visualize it in this sketch which then became our Fuse Rock Ring," she explains in a Facebook post.
As she wrote on Facebook, the solo piece was her "visualisation of the cloud of smoke I saw in the midst of the explosion which destroyed our home, our offices and took away our friends".
Social media users however do not agree. Going by comments online, many view the piece as being insensitive. "Yet someone else trying to profit off the pain of thousands. And of course at a price most Lebanese couldn't possibly afford. There is a big difference between depicting trauma through art and creating unaffordable, unattainable fashion off the back suffering (sic)," complained one Twitter user.
"First there was that purse made with shards of glass from the explosion, now there's this ring that "tells a story of resilience." Can we please stop commercializing tragedy?" urged another.
