default

“We are all strangers in the city,” he says. “That affects people’s behaviour; they become more tolerant, more accepting of new ideas. I like the Baudelairian idea of the flâneur, someone wandering around in the city moving very lightly, but now it’s more complicated with speed or science, for example. Now we are more aware of the social issues connected with cities, with the looming dangers. The possibility of an accident is much higher.” - Marwan Rechmaoui, 2014

‘Shabriha 8’ from Marwan Rechmaoui is a component of the series entitled ‘The UNRWA Series: Camp Dwellers Narrating Sites of Dereliction’, dedicated by the artist to the Palestinian refugee camps in South Lebanon. The painting shows us a ground plan with a maze of alleyways and streets that grew organically owing to the lack of official urban planning for these permanent 'temporary' refugee camps. For this series, Rechmaoui worked with a number of refugee organizations and camp inhabitants whom he invited to draw a map of their living environment. These drawings were reproduced by the artist in various materials using concrete, paintings, rice- and sugar sacks, etc.