This is not an exhibition. And this is not Beirut.

Abstract

This is not an exhibition. is a platform for experimentation in the public spaces of the city through timely interventions in the form of installations, performances, discussions, walks, etc. These interventions aim at questioning and contesting established artistic and curatorial practices by transgressing the normalization of social, political and urban dynamics in the spaces they take place in and invite the audience to participate in the production of the works. The pilot version of This is not an exhibition. And this is not Beirut., engages with Beirut in the aftermath of the August 4 explosion through artistic interventions taking place in public. The works produced shed light on the present and the reality of the city, as opposed to projecting an illusory future in which the city's inhabitants are mere observers of the city's transformations. Public installations have been utilized since the mid 1990s in Beirut as a means to counter the reconstructive policies urban development by the company Solidere (Société Libanaise pour le Développement et la Reconstruction du Centre-ville de Beyrouth) which reshaped the city and erased its collective memory. In the wake of the explosion, there is a lingering fear of continuity of this mnemonic politics of erasure and further displacement of its residents. The works presented on this platform are non-representational and engage with the present and reality of the city rather than projecting a unified image of Beirut. Concocted in the BePublic lab –a timely experimental lab engaging with the social, political and urban dynamics that form the given space– This is not an exhibition. And this is not Beirut., maps out the produced interventions across different points of the city. Through these works, the audiences are invited to navigate and explore the space of the city across a myriad of contributions, not restricted to a medium or an approach. The multimedia and multidisciplinary platform in the form of a website archives the produced spatial and temporal ruptures in Beirut. By navigating the city, we are able to perceive it in its heterogeneous fragments, instead of a collective and enforced romanticization of the blast. The importance of these works lies in the process, through which we allow ourselves to discover the needs of social, economic, political and urban spheres as we frame their ruptures.