More than a year after Beirut’s port explosion, workers and artists are still repairing destruction at the city’s Sursock museum. The museum, badly damaged by the August 4, 2020 blast, has long provided a rare public and free space for art in Lebanon. It even remained open during Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war. Sitting on hills in the Achrafieh neighborhood near the Beirut Port, the 60-year-old Sursock was the beating heart of Beirut’s creative community. The country’s only modern art museum, it has a collection of Lebanese art dating back to the late 1800s. The explosion not only damaged the Sursock; it also damaged many independent, small art spaces. But for the Sursock, the blow was especially hard. This is because in 2015, the museum completed a nearly ten-year improvement project. Zeina Arida is the museum’s director. Describing the effects of the explosion, she used the term overwhelm, meaning to cause someone to have too many things to deal with. “At the beginning we were overwhelmed with the reality and the extent of the damage,” Arida said. The explosion tore through the three-story building, breaking windows, pulling off doors and wrecking everything down to the fourth underground level. The art collection was badly hit. At least 57 of the 130 pieces on display were damaged. Among them was Dutch artist Kees Von Dongen’s painting of Nicolas Sursock, after whom the museum is named. Teams first spent three months cleaning dust and chemicals throughout the museum. Then came the art repairs. A year later, builders have put in windows, ceilings and doors and are now adding dividers and lights.