Reclaiming Beirut: Call for Participation
- Report from Dajij, Lebanon
- Deadline for Submissions: 30 June 2007
As the spaces of our city are slowly being taken over by those who claim to be the sole bearers of its history; as the places in which we have grown up and lived are being turned into guarded enclaves; as Beirut is being overtaken by those who would destroy it in order to preserve the patriarchal sectarian status quo, the time for us to reclaim it has arrived with a pressing urgency.
It is also high time women in particular stake their claim to the public spaces of the city, traditionally coded male. Subtle cues emanate that keep reminding women that these spaces are not theirs, from the catcall on the street to the smirk at women drivers, from the fear of walking alone at night to the forgotten histories that do not fit the the traditional, male-dominated narratives of Beirut.
Dajij is issuing a call for participation for a project that aims to remap and reclaim Beirut from the perspective of women. People who express interest will pick an area or a community in Beirut and re-explore it from any angle of their choosing and through any medium. This could be a visual social mapping, women’s narratives of their neighborhood, the unearthing of a hidden history, a diary chronicling a period of time spent in a certain neighborhood or area, a photo-essay, personal reflections of walking around its streets, etc. The entries should reflect aspects of these spaces that are usually hidden or marginalized. Any publishable medium is acceptable. The entries will then be collected and published.
Please submit any ideas you may have or brief proposals to Dajij. The deadline for submission is June 30, 2007. Once all proposals are in, we will call for a group meeting to discuss how to take the project forward.
For questions, comments, or proposals, please email: dajijbeirut@gmail.com
