From the street, the spire looks like a thin white rod pointing above the surrounding buildings at a rakish angle to the sky. It could be the tip of a flagpole knocked out of alignment, an absurdly long spear or an ominously high-tech, disturbingly out-of-place weapon.

However, turn into the wrought iron gates and enter Haigazian’s leafy courtyard, and the spire turns out to be the needle-nose of a rocket – one of two gleaming white iron sculptures produced by the artists and filmmakers Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige.

Part of an ongoing, multi-faceted artwork that includes videos, installations, archival images and a forthcoming film, the sculptures are named for and inspired by the little-known history of the Lebanese Rocket Society, which was founded at Haigazian 50 years ago.

Each piece is an 8-meter replica of the Cedar IV, the most famous of the high-performance projectiles that were launched over Lebanon in the 1960s, only to disappear in the Mediterranean immediately thereafter.

“What’s strange is that no one remembers this story,” says Hadjithomas, “even though it was on the front pages of all the newspapers. We know this kind of amnesia in Lebanon, but this was a positive thing.”

The story of the Lebanese Rocket Society began in 1960, when a math and physics teacher named Manoug Manougian joined the Haigazian faculty. Assigned the task of revamping the school’s science club, Manougian rounded up a group of students, mostly freshmen, and turned their attention to rocketry.

Beyond learning the principles of thrust, drag and lift, the students wanted to design and build their own rockets. Their ambitions were epistemic. They wanted to study and explore space. Instigating a weapons program was never on the agenda.

Within a year, the science club rebranded itself the Haigazian College Rocket Society. The group launched its first few rockets in the spring of 1961: first a tiny one that lifted off from a remote farm for a small audience of students, then larger ones reaching higher altitudes and attracting greater public attention, governmental scrutiny and regional envy. This was, in effect, the Arab world’s entry into the space race.

By the spring of 1962, the Lebanese Army was securing the launch sites, the rockets were reaching heights of 20 kilometers or more, and other universities were eager to get involved.

Lebanon’s president, Fouad Chehab, invited the society’s members to a meeting to commend them on their work. The U.S. and the USSR dispatched ambassadors and cultural attachés to check out what they were doing.

With its profile rising, the group changed its name to the Lebanese Rocket Society and initiated the Cedar series, from Cedar I through Cedar VII. Most of the rockets were successful, Cedar IV so much so that it was emblazoned on a postal stamp commemorating Lebanon’s independence.

But accidents did occur, including an ill-advised experiment with propellant chemicals that deprived one student of an eye. In 1966, Cedar VII exploded on its ramp before liftoff. It turned out to be the last launch.

No one knows for sure why the rocket program ended, but by 1967 it was gone. The society disbanded. Its members scattered across the globe. The war with Israel that summer must have been a factor. Some say France asked Lebanon to give the rockets a rest. Others argue that Israel’s spy network wormed in among members of the group. Before the rocket’s curious return to Kantari six weeks ago, few remembered that Lebanon had ever had a Sputnik moment of its own.

“We wanted to have the rocket in Haigazian for students to remember this story,” says Hadjithomas, “and for people to cross the street and ask themselves, what is this?

“What can come from Lebanon?” she asks.

“It’s always weapons or war. But the rocket was for scientific purposes. It shifts the gaze, and this displacement is something that interests us.”

On Feb. 22, Hadjithomas and Joreige unveiled the first sculpture in Beirut, during an official ceremony replete with a dramatic white sheet draped over the piece. Haigazian’s president, Paul Haidostian, officiated over the event. With camp and humor, the sheet was whisked away to reveal an ambiguous artwork, which doubles as a gift to the university in tribute to its long-standing commitment to science.

A few weeks later, the second sculpture arrived in Sharjah. It now stands in a square in front of an art museum, one of several works erected in public space for the tenth Sharjah Biennial.

A more elaborate articulation of Hadjithomas and Joreige’s project – four video screens and a room filled with 32 accordion-folded prints – remains on view inside the museum through May 16, subtitled “Elements for a Possible Monument.”

“Monument is a big word,” says Hadjithomas. “We have no pretensions [about making] monuments but we are interested in how you create something that stays and deals with a moment in history. We don’t work on memory. We work on a relation with history.

“We are not interested in nostalgia for the 1960s,” she explains.

“We are more interested in how we perceived ourselves as Arabs in the 1960s. What were our notions of modernity, science and knowledge? What was our faith in all that and why did it disappear?”

The Lebanese Rocket Society was, in effect, a dream hemmed in by defeat. Hadjithomas and Joreige have returned to a moment of possibility from the past, but their purpose is to revive its potential in the present.

“We really wanted to do something on this possibility of dreaming. Today it has special echoes, but for me these people were dreamers. I want to dream with them in the present.”

There are easier ways to dream than moving two rockets around the Middle East in a time of widespread upheaval. The Haigazian sculpture traveled to Beirut from Dbayyeh, where it was made, on the back of a flatbed truck, escorted by a sizable security detail. The Sharjah rocket required two months of logistical work.

“To put the rocket in boxes and find someone willing to ship them was really difficult,” says Hadjithomas.

“We had to get authorizations. We had to see ministers. The army had to come, check the boxes, see that the rocket is empty, and understand that it’s just a sculpture – because, of course, it looks like a missile.

“This was only possible because the biennial helped us and supported our idea,” she adds. “This was only possible in the territory of art.”

Sharjah Biennial 10 is on view through May 16. For more information, please see www.sharjahart.org.