tutor | joy kanaan
STREET ART AS A FORM OF RESISTANCE
How does one contain powerful messages that are normally spread out on street surfaces such as walls, glass, sidewalks and buildings, in a single space. How does one preserve the impact of such form of communication within the walls of a building?
As an outcome of the current events sweeping the nation, street art emerged as a major form of resistance and communication. Freedom of expression merging with artistic articulation resulted in layers of powerful messages, forms, colors, and graphics all over the country. Walls, windows, sidewalks turned into colorful canvases carrying the sound of frustration and revolt.
Students are invited to use the streets as their research grounds and investigate this form of resistance and expression, leading to a comprehensive design of an Artists’ Hub in the city. This will require a thorough investigation between design tectonics, structural systems and innovative enclosures. The objective is to engage the complex interrelationship between art, architecture and the city, examining emergent shifts between built form, the shifting nature of artistic praxis and new sharing economies as catalysts.
The vehicle will be a co-working facility for artists, comprising shared art studios and a collective public exhibition venue. Drawing from similar initiatives such as D Beirut in Karantina, this program assumes a hybridization of typologies of atelier, incubator, commercial gallery, public exhibition venue, and community educational space, facilitating new intersections between producers, patrons and diverse communities while creating opportunities for artists outside the established economies of conventional commercial galleries.