Beirut Mural Fest
Beirut Mural Fest is a collaborative, thematic, and multidisciplinary mural festival to be held in Bierut between July 18 and August 4, 2021. The festival seeks to reflect on issues of collective trauma, memory and identity in Beirut following the devastating blast that hit the city on August 4 2020.
Preserving the collective memory of the 4th of August explosion is an important first step to social healing and to establishing a culture of accountability over the loss of life and the trauma suffered on that day and beyond. The festival simply aims to use murals to say that the suffering and trauma of that tragic day will not be forgotten but will be folded into Beirut’s urban fabric.
Following the Beirut Port explosion that killed more than 200 people and destroyed much of the city, renovation efforts were geared primarily towards the rebuilding, repairing, and painting over the damaged homes and buildings in the areas most affected. In some cases, greater attention was placed on heritage buildings to preserve their architectural identity.
While that describes the essential activities required to rehabilitate residents back in their neighbourhoods, it ignores dealing with the memory and trauma of the tragic event and fails to depict that in the built environment.
Typically, during the restoration works, all physical traces of the blast are fixed, covered, and painted over. As a result, many of the devastated neighbourhoods may soon show no physical trace that speaks of the events of August 4.
Certainly, the idea here is to complement the restoration efforts by focusing on preserving urban memory. The festival rationale works with the premise that a living culture needs a constant reference to collective memory and that the erosion of memory will result in a sense of loss, dispossession and unresolved questions of belonging.
Renovation of buildings in Rue Pharaon in Mar Mikhayel (February, 2021). All physical traces of the damages caused by the explosion have been fixed and painted over.
The festival addresses this aspect, particularly the representation of collective memory in the urban environment —through public art— and the significance of it in cementing identity within the vulnerable communities.
Suggested mural locations in Beirut
How is Beirut Mural Fest different from a graffiti festival?
JURIED
CONTEXTUALIZED
MULTIDISCIPLINARY
The winning artworks must offer a high aesthetic viewing experience and are selected by a jury rather than an individual.
The winning artworks are directly inspired by the testimonials from the resident community members rather than by the artist community.
The festival’s activities engage a multitude of disciplines in Lebanese society: artists, architects, activists, private sector and entrepreneurship.
SOCIAL IMPACT
ECONOMIC IMPACT
SENTIMENTAL VALUE
Murals in public spaces create impact on the communities due to the frequency of the visual messages being engraved in memory and the visual identity of the street(s) and neighbourhoods.
Beautiful murals in public spaces are highly sharable on social media platforms. They are means to retain public attention, attract local visitors and tourists alike. Thus they contribute to the economic growth of local businesses and increases real estate value in the neighborhood.
The mural artworks will be selected based on their aesthetic value and their representation to the community sentiments. That will be uncovered following surveys and focus groups with local residents.
About the Festival's working methodology
What makes the Beirut Mural Fest different from other activities in the ongoing renovation effort in Beirut is its focus on depicting and strengthening the collective memory of the blast through creating murals in the built environment.
The festival’s working theory observes that strengthening collective memory between residents will help in tightening the social fabric in the community, reducing migration away from the devastated areas, spreading the economic benefits and strengthening the overall communal sentiment and identity.
What supports this theory is the festival's working methodology, as it proposes carrying out community interviews and minimal invasive focus groups as well as collecting visual materials relevant to the memory of August 4, and the events that occurred following the port of Beirut explosion.
The research will also ask community members what they want to see in their neighbourhood mural. This ensures that the voices of the residents are heard and that the submitted artworks do actually incorporate and consider the social context. The findings of this research will be made public and provided as a repository of material from which the artists can later contextualize to create their artwork entries.
Entries or artwork submissions will be collected following an Open Call that will be announced on the festival’s website. Once all entries are submitted, the festival’s multidisciplinary committee will select the winning entries for each mural location.
COMMUNITY OUTREARCH
ASSESSMENT & JURY
ARTISTS' SUBMISSIONS
MURAL EXECUTION
The Milestones for Execution
Augmented Reality experience
(installation art and its capacity to interpret and elaborate places of historical significance)
The AR application allows the merging of the real life mural with 3D digital designs. Via the AR technology, the narrative is open to invite people to continue the story told via the mural. It offers a way for people to connect to the murals and the spaces at multiple levels and a way for people to connect to fellow viewers and residents alike.
The festival alleges that AR designed murals have the potential to forge poignant connections between the past and present. It proposes that visual installation acts as a pivotal source to weave memory and the imagination in the present moment.
Prepared by Karim Ghazzi
February 2021
"Lying on the River" in Ferizaj, Kosovo for Mural Fest Kosovo 2020
"A Hug" by Lidia Cao, Zaragoza, Spain. Festival Asalto 2020
"Envol" by Nubian Artwork, Rouen, France. for Rouen Impressionnee 2020
