Circle of Confusion by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, on show at Le Mois de la Photo a Montreal.

Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige are showing one piece in Le Mois de la Photo a Montreal - a large, fragmented image of Beirut that viewers are invited to scatter - but the gallery in which it's being shown, Galerie Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, has taken the opportunity to show a much larger collection of their work. I am here even if you don't see me includes a video documentary about a stolen, censored film, a half-eroded video from Joreige's disappeared uncle, photographs of decomposing posters of martyrs and war heroes taken around the Lebanon, and seemingly-straightup shots of weaponry, as well as other pieces. Their work explores the use of imagery in the Lebanon, and the ways in which images both illuminate and contribute to the country's complex political situation.

'We became interested in photography and video during the war because of the use of images by different media,' Joreige explains to BJP. 'We were trying to think about our own relation to images - whether we can believe in them, and whether we can grab something of our own presence.'

That's why The Circle of Confusion, the image shown at Le Mois de la Photo, divides Beirut into 3000 moveable pieces. Viewers can move the pieces around or remove them altogether, destroying, rebuilding and falsifying the city and illustrating how poorly and partially documented it is. That's also why the duo photograph posters of dead heroes, whose individual features have worn away over time, and why Le Film Perdu shows clips from the Lebanese media and local photographers as well as the short takes ironically rescued from their stolen footage by the censors. 'We’re not a country without images, we’re a country that produces a lot of images,' says Hadjithomas. 'We had a lot of television channels during and after the war but what these images were showing was politically telling.

'You cannot make images or film without thinking about the other images that have been produced, especially in a country like the Lebanon,' she adds. 'We have in mind the photojournalism and the propagandistic images used in the war, as well as the images used by other powers, be they political or economic.'

For Hadjithomas and Joreige, form is inseparable from content, and both are equally important in generating meaning in their work. Rather than a vessel to carry content, form is part of an integrated strategy, which considers images and their uses and abuses. 'We don’t work on images because we're interested in images, we're interested in the context,' says Hadjithomas. 'That’s what pushes us to question. We have a lot of questions and we want to share them with others.

'I'm not suspicious of photojournalism necessarily, but I want to stem the flow of images and regain some power over them. In that sense, our work is political, because we take our context into consideration. When you’re aware of the context in which you produce your images you must be political.'