By Youssef Tabti and Rani el Rajji
In the framework of Zoukak Sidewalks Festival
Opening: 1 November at 7:00pm
Zoukak Studio
A collaboration between Youssef Tabti, French artist, based in Germany and Rani Al Rajji, Lebanese architect, based in Beirut. Initiated by Goethe-Institut Libanon.
“Psychogeographic exploration" is a practice that rediscovers the physical city through the moods and atmospheres that act upon the individual. Psychogeography is the experimental exploration of the environment and its impacts. It investigates the influence the geographic environment has on the perception and the behavior of the individual.
Perhaps the most prominent characteristic of psychogeography is the activity of WALKING. The act of walking could be become a subversive and political act.
About 10 participants from Beirut with different social backgrounds explored the district of Bourj Hammoud through individual and collective walking tours through the district. During these tours, participants collected items, drew maps and wrote down thoughts and observations.
The exhibition at Zoukak Studio is the final presentation of the project, showcasing a mapping of the region through the participants’ routes on a map, as well as photographs, objects and texts of the participants.
Youssef Tabti addresses and investigates current and historical social and political questions, often conflating issues of the cultures that have formed his aesthetics and his view of our world in his work. Born in Paris as the son of a French mother and an Algerian father, and currently residing in the North German harbor city of Hamburg, Tabti conjoins his Algerian roots and his Western heritage in the themes he explores. His dual socialization has given him a unique, polyvalent perception that incorporates a simultaneous ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ awareness, which serves as a rich, multi-level basis for his art practice.
Rani Al Rajji is a Lebanese architect and urban storyteller. He is mostly interested in history, politics, arts, music and design, which are also his tools for implementing new ideas in the public city spaces. He is a co-founder and director of Studio Beirut that aims to collect public space experiences and to conduct tours relying on remixed and reinvented narratives. The 2010 “Beyroutes: a guide to Beirut” which Rani Al Rajji co-edited, has become a reference in alternative guiding and Studio Beirut is working with collectives in places like Teheran, Amsterdam, Kabul, Berlin and others to edit other similar guides to complete the “never walk a lonely planet collection”. Rani Al Rajji lives and works in Mount Lebanon.
The exhibition will be shown at Zoukak Studio from November 1st until November 11, 2018.
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