ZAYRAQOUN COLLECTIVE

Initially emerging from a need to bring an inclusive, uplifting, and participatory experience with the people on Lebanese streets.The period of multiple crisis which Lebanon entered in 2019 turned Zayraqoun to become a nucleus of alternative possibilities fo artists, activists, and regular people and where we all projected our biggest ideals for society reclaiming the period of four years of intense economic, security and health crisis as some of the most empowering years of our lives.

It’s breaking apart served as a reminder of our vulnerability to the systems we live in and our weaknesses to learn from.

2019-2023

Khabarkan street performance, Zoukak’s Sidewalks festival, Beirut 2024

How can multiple social crisis become a ripe environment for the emergence of creative collectives?
How can the social experimentation and collective learning happening within the safe space of an art collective be transmitted to the wider culture?
How can we build resilient networks of solidarity around and through the arts?

Discussion during a 3 day retreat to draw out the future vision of the collective, August 2022

Corruption dances with death, a scene from Rehla Ila Terdad... Part of the Terdad festival in partnership with UNESCO which sought to bring back life to the streets of Gemmayzeh which was heavily impacted by the explosion of the Beirut Harbor in August 2020.