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An ancient Egyptian temple in New York inspires a Lebanese American musician
Singer and composer H. Sinno is bringing a site-specific opera to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Temple of Dendur.
Derrick Kakembo /The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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Derrick Kakembo /The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Singer and composer H. Sinno is bringing a site-specific opera to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Temple of Dendur.
Derrick Kakembo /The Metropolitan Museum of Art
For nearly 50 years, the Temple of Dendur, an ancient Egyptian monument, has famously made its home at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The temple is also an inspiration for musicians and dancers who have been invited to perform there. The latest is singer and composer H. Sinno, born and raised in Lebanon. Their opera Westerly Breath had its world premiere at the temple on Friday.
H. Sinno, also known as Hamed Sinno, used to be the lead singer for a groundbreaking indie rock band in Beirut called Mashrou’ Leila. Sinno was an out gay person, and the band championed LGBTQ rights and equality in the Middle East and North Africa, within an often hostile climate.
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The band became very popular throughout the region — but its members also faced death threats, and they were widely banned from performing. But a culminating blow, Sinno says, was when an Egyptian fan, Sarah Hegazy, was imprisoned in 2017 for waving a rainbow flag at one of their shows. As Hegazy told NPR in 2018, she was assaulted in prison and suffered PTSD. Three years later, Hegazy died by suicide in Canada, where she had been granted asylum.
Her struggle catalyzed Sinno’s move to the U.S. (He already held dual U.S. citizenship with Lebanon.)
“For quite a long time, when I was working with Mashrou’ Leila and when my primary audience was in the Arab world, it felt like there was a very clear sense of purpose — that was my job and what I wanted to do for myself as well,” Sinno says. “It aligned with what I wanted for the world around me in terms of change. And obviously, we got punished for that repeatedly, got banned from everywhere.”
“Just this question arose of what is the point of what I’m doing, especially after the death of Sarah Hegazy,” Sinno says, “which really just made it so that nothing that I have written since has not just had her face branded on my brain while writing.”
Sinno delved deep into the nuanced history of the temple while developing Westerly Breath.
The Temple of Dendur at The Met.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Temple of Dendur at The Met.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
“Unlike many relics that you see in American and European museums, this was not stolen,” Sinno observes. Instead, the Roman-era temple was given to the United States by the Egyptian government during the rule of former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1960s. Its existence, and that of several other ancient structures, had been threatened by the building of the Aswan Dam. The U.S. donated $16 million to preserve the ancient monuments, and Nasser gave the U.S. this temple in gratitude. It was dismantled, moved in 661 blocks, and reconstructed in New York.
Still, Sinno maintains, the temple has a complex story: Nasser was a leader and hero of the pan-Arabism movement. “The building of the Aswan Dam, in the history of the Arab world and in the history of Arab nationalism, is such a sort of monument to pan-Arabism, to Arab nationalism, to decolonial struggle, but was actually a very problematic project,” Sinno asserts. (The construction of the dam submerged the region of Nubia and displaced tens of thousands of indigenous Nubians. Additionally, Nasser drove several minority communities out of Egypt during this period, including this reporter’s family.) “So I had the idea that this temple sort of had to flee Arab nationalism.”
Sinno, who uses they/them pronouns, says the temple became a ripe metaphor for their move to the U.S.
“For this temple to come to the U.S. in pieces and be rebuilt at the Met,” Sinno says, “felt to me very much like how I experienced immigration too, of just feeling like I needed to leave. The timing of my emigration was also remarkable. You couldn’t plan it in a worse way. I came here in 2019 — right before the banking crisis in Lebanon, right before the failed Lebanese revolution, right before COVID, before George Floyd. I did, at some point, feel like I was just as in pieces. And so the opera is stories about things or people that are taken apart and then have to be rebuilt and sort of become something else.”
Westerly Breath — a piece for voices, strings and electronics — is less about answers than a snapshot of Sinno’s process of self-questioning and self-reimagining.
One of several threads running through the work is ancient Egyptian myth and the story of the god Osiris, who was believed to be the first mummy. He was killed by his brother, Seth.
“Seth ultimately rips his brother up into a bajillion pieces,” Sinno explains, “spreads them all over Egypt, and then his sister-slash lover, Isis, recollects those pieces, puts them back together, and creates the first mummy — through that, he is reanimated as something else. There’s a sort of crossing over through dismemberment and then remember-ment, which I like to think of as a remembrance as well.”
H. Sinno says that there’s also something about the temple itself — its sheer size and heft — that can hold all the layers of stories they want to tell.
“It has that sort of insane gravitas about it,” Sinno says of the temple. “Even sonically, you’re just constantly confronted with how small you are. What that does to the voice is really quite magical: you say something, and then you hear the reflection. And you’re just confronted with time — you’ve already moved on, and that voice comes back at you from another time. It’s really very, very magical.”
Limor Tomer heads the Department of Live Arts at the Met. She points out that the Sinno’s old band, Mashrou’ Leila, met while studying architecture in Beirut — and that background drew her in.
“They come from architecture and visual art, which is very helpful when you invite an artist to create a performance in a gallery,” Tomer observes. “They bring a different kind of sensibility and awareness of objects and architecture. And it seemed to me like the way that H. thinks about objects and their interaction with sound and movement would make for an interesting piece.”
H. Sinno says they hope this opera can also travel to other locations for performances— because the opera carries within it the story of the temple of Dendur itself.
If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or be in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
“She’s like a female Willy Wonka,” Sakief Baron, 36, said about Kendra Austin, 32, after she explained that her personal style had a playful and cartoonish spirit.
Dressed in loose, oversize layers in blue and neutral shades, the couple were walking on the Upper East Side of Manhattan when I noticed them on a Saturday in April. There was a symmetry to their ensembles, so it wasn’t too surprising when she noted that he had influenced her fashion sense.
Before they met, she said, she was “less sure” about her wardrobe choices. “I also have lost 100 pounds in the time we’ve been together,” she added, which she said had helped her to recalibrate her relationship with clothes.
His style has been influenced by hip-hop culture, basketball players like Allen Iverson and his mother’s Finnish background. “I just take all these pieces and then it kind of comes together,” he said.
Both described themselves as multidisciplinary artists; he also has a job at a youth center, mentoring children. “I want to make sure that I look like someone they want to aspire to be every time they see me,” he said.
In my L.A. Buy Nothing group, I started noticing how some objects, given for free from neighbor to neighbor, carry emotional weight. An item was more than it appeared. It was a piece of personal history, perhaps one with generational memories.
From one person’s hands to another’s, objects find new life through the free gift economy on Facebook or the Buy Nothing app. Buy Nothing Project, a public benefit corporation, reports having 14 million members across more than 50 countries who give away 2.6 million items a month. There are more than 100 groups in Los Angeles alone.
Buy Nothing reduces waste by keeping items out of landfills. It also builds community. When our lives are increasingly online, Buy Nothing encourages us to get out of our cars and make connections with neighbors, even if the interaction is no more than a wave when picking something up left by a doorstep. Researchers have found that even small social interactions can foster a sense of belonging.
Still, Buy Nothing has its challenges. For years, some have complained that the groups shouldn’t be limited to neighborhoods, but rather have more open borders. Last year, many longtime members complained about the project enforcing its trademark, leading Facebook to shut down unregistered groups even if they were serving people under economic strain. Critics saw the tattling as a shift from mutual aid toward control and branding. For its part, Buy Nothing says its decisions are based on building community, trust and safety.
Despite those disagreements, Buy Nothing offers a platform for special connections. As much as there are jokes about people offering half-eaten cake, many have passed along treasured items. Buy Nothing items may feel too valuable for the trash or too personal for Goodwill. The interaction between giver and receiver becomes just as meaningful as the object itself.
I set out to document these quiet exchanges in my Buy Nothing group, drawn to the question of why people choose to pass their belongings from one neighbor to another.
Tiny builders, big exchange
Lidia Butcher gives a toolbox and worktable her two sons used to Chelsea Ward for her 17-month-old son.
“We’ve had the toolbox and worktable for the last 10 years, it’s been very special. When I told my youngest son we were going to give it away, he was a little sad. He said he was still playing with it, but then I explained that it’s been sitting untouched for a year and that if we gave it to someone else, maybe someone else would be happy about it. So he felt joy about giving it to another child who would want to play with it. I have this little emotional feeling letting it go, but at the same time, it’s a good feeling. Like a new beginning.”
— Lidia Butcher, 35, joined the group several years ago when someone told her a person in the group once asked for a cup of sugar.
“We’re getting a worktable. Benji is now old enough to be interested in playing with tools. I’m going to move my drafting table out of his room. His bedroom is my office. So that will go into storage or the Buy Nothing group and the worktable will go in its place. We live in an apartment, and as he’s growing, his needs change but our space doesn’t. Buy Nothing is really helpful to be able to cycle out of stuff.”
— Chelsea Ward, 38, has found the Buy Nothing group extremely helpful since becoming a mom.
Something borrowed
Abby Rodriguez lends Sophie Janinet a veil for her wedding.
“Sophie had asked for a wedding veil on our Buy Nothing group and I’m lending it to her because I wanted it to have a second life. I hate the idea that precious things just sit there and never get touched. My wedding day was one of the best days of my life. At one point the power went out and now we have this amazing picture with my husband and I and everyone using their phone to light up the dance floor.”
— Abby Rodriguez, 40, discovered Buy Nothing when she moved to her northeast L.A. neighborhood in 2020.
“I moved to Los Angeles from France four years ago. The day I joined Buy Nothing was the first time I felt connected to the community. It played a huge role in my adapting to life here. I’m receiving a veil because I want my wedding to look and feel like my values. I thrifted my dress, I chose a local seamstress to alter the dress but when I tried it on, I felt something was missing. I wanted a veil but I didn’t want to buy new because I didn’t want to add anything to the landfill. So I posted a request for the veil on Buy Nothing.”
— Sophie Janinet, 37, is recreating the low-waste, slower-paced values she once lived by in France through her local Buy Nothing community.
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1. Abby Rodriguez, left, holds her wedding veil that she is lending Sophie Janinet, right, for her upcoming wedding. 2. Michele Sawers, left stands with Beth Penn, right, while giving her a decorative owl.
A pigeon-spooking owl gets a second life
Michele Sawers gives Beth Penn a decorative owl.
“Coming from a place of luck, now I have plenty to give. The owl has been with me for 26 years. I bought the owl soon after I bought this house. The owl was purchased because I had a pigeon problem, they would camp out under my eves and I would have bird poop everywhere. The owl must have worked because they’re gone and they haven’t come back.”
— Michele Sawers, 58, uses Buy Nothing regularly to connect with her community and support her low-consumption values.
“There are things I don’t want to own. So borrowing those things on Buy Nothing is really nice. There is a person who I borrowed their cooler twice and their ladder twice so I feel like they are my neighbor even though they are not [right next door]. We get these birds that poop on the deck and the recommendation online was to get a fake owl. When it was posted on Buy Nothing, I thought, ‘I have to have that owl!’ It’s going to have a good home with me on the deck with some cats, a dog and some kids.”
— Beth Penn, 47, once helped build her local Buy Nothing group and now experiences it from the other side, as a member.
Stuffed toys find a new purpose
Magaly Leyva, left, stands with Tatiana Lonny, right, with the stuffed toys and play balls she is gifting her.
(Dania Maxwell/For The Times)
Magaly Leyva gives stuffed toys and plastic play balls to Tatiana Lonny.
“My mother-in-law gave the dolls and plastic play balls to my daughter, but she has so much. My daughter is not going to play with them with the same intent that another kid would, because she’s really little. I’d rather another kid use these things.”
— Magaly Leyva, 35, joined Buy Nothing nearly four years ago to find clothes for her nephew.
“I’m taking these new items to a township called Langa in South Africa. I know the kids there will be so happy. They have so little there. I’m doing this all by myself, I’m just collecting a GoFundMe for the suitcase fee at the airport.”
— Tatiana Lonny, 51, began using Buy Nothing in hopes of finding resources to support the animals she rescues.
A second helping
Laura Cherkas gives Aurora Sanchez a cast iron pan.
“Buy Nothing gives me the freedom to let go of things because I know that they will stay in the community and the neighborhood. I’m giving a couple of cast iron items that my husband and I got when we were on a cast iron kick, probably during COVID. We determined that we don’t actually use these particular pans and they were just making our drawers heavy. So we decided to let someone else get some use out of them.
“I hate throwing things away. I want to see things have another life. Sometimes I take things to a donation center, but I like the personal connection with Buy Nothing and that you know that there is someone who definitely wants your item.”
— Laura Cherkas, 40, has built connections with other moms through Buy Nothing and values it as a way to cycle toys in and out for her child.
Laura Cherkas, left, holds the pan she is gifting Aurora Sanchez, right, through Buy Nothing.
(Dania Maxwell/For The Times)
“I wanted a cast iron pan because I cook a lot of grilled meat. I’m excited to try this style of cooking out and it will help me when I cook for only one or two people. I got lucky because I was chosen to receive it.”
— Aurora Sanchez, 54, has spent the past two years engaging with Buy Nothing, finding in it a sense of neighborly support that makes her feel valued while strengthening her connection to the community.
Next player up
Joe Zeni, 70, is using his local Buy Nothing group on Facebook to give away a basketball hoop he used with his son when he was little.
(Dania Maxwell/For The Times)
Joe Zeni first offered a basketball hoop on Buy Nothing in 2023, where it remains unclaimed.
“I’m giving away a Huffy basketball freestanding hoop because it’s just taking up space. We used to play horse and shoot baskets together. My son is now 35, he doesn’t live here anymore.”
— Joe Zeni, 70, uses Buy Nothing often to give items away, believing many of the things he no longer needs still have purpose.
In the year since his death, there has been no hard pivot at Armani. The shadow of the founder has stayed in place over the Milan HQ, where the brand seems happy to leave it. Armani is not just plumbing the past for continued inspiration, it’s reselling it.
Today, Giorgio Armani is announcing Archivio, a grouping of 13 men’s and women’s looks, plucked from the brand’s back catalog and remade for today. (And, yes, at today’s prices.) There’s a jacket in pinstriped alpaca of 1979 vintage; a buttery one-and-a-half breasted jacket with a maitre d’s flair that first appeared in 1987; and an unstructured silk-linen suit that will activate ’90s flashbacks for die-hard Armani clients and those who want to capture that era’s nostalgia. The advertising campaign was shot and styled by Eli Russell Linnetz, who has his own label, ERL, but always seems to be the first call brands make when they want sultry photos with the aura of Details magazine circa 1995. (He did a similar thing for Guess recently.)
Linnetz’s images are a reminder of how Armani’s work still reverberates decades later.
Archivio is also a canny recognition of what shoppers crave now. On the resale market, Armani wares are as coveted as can be. Every week it seems as if I get an email from Ndwc0, a British vintage store, announcing a new drop of meaty-shouldered ’90s Armani power suits. They sell for less than $500. At Sorbara’s in Brooklyn, you can buy a tan Giorgio Armani vest for $225.
That vintage-mad audience is in Armani’s sights: To introduce the collection, it’s staging an installation, opening today, at Giorgio Armani’s Milan boutique. It will feature the hosts of “Throwing Fits,” a New York-based podcast whose hosts wear vintage Armani button-ups and shout out stores like Sorbara’s.
It’s prudent, if a bit disconnected. Part of the charm of old Armani is that it can be found on the cheap. I’m wearing a pair of vintage Giorgio Armani corduroys as I write this. I bought them for $76 on eBay. Archivio is reverent, but its prices, which range from $1,025 to $12,000, may scare off shoppers willing to do the searching themselves.
If you ask me, the next frontier of this archive fixation is that a brand — and a big one — will release a mountain of genuine vintage pieces. J. Crew and Banana Republic have tried this at a small scale, but a luxury house like Armani hasn’t gone there. Yet. Eventually, Armani (or a brand like it) is going to grab hold of the market that exists around its brand, but through which it gets no cut.
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