X-Apartments – Bourj Hammoud & Khandaq Al-Ghamiq

As part of the Home Works 6 forum, Ashkal Alwan will be hosting X-Apartments. The participants of this year’s Home Workspace Program take you on a tour of private homes—those carefully protected spaces where human beings play out the largest part of their life, their conflicts, laughter, hopes and disappointments, safe from the public eye.

Every 10 minutes 2 visitors, aided by the outline of a route, set off on a 3-hour tour of a neighbourhood that leads them to 8 different stops. At each stop, an apartment or a space has been transformed into a stage for a short scene—a performance, a piece of music or theatre, a dance or an installation—alluding closely or loosely to some of the individual or collective stories linked to these neighbourhoods and inhabited spaces. Oscillating between documentary and fiction, the project departs from an encounter between residents, artists and visitors.

Carried out a number of times in different cities around the world, X-Apartments is as much a domestic as it is an urban intervention—inviting the viewer to test their expectations of other people’s intimate realities, and to experience their own city through new eyes

In its Beirut edition, X-Apartments is also largely a project about walking in a city that tries to block the activity of walking as much as possible.

X-Apartments will run between May 12 and 15 in the two neighborhoods of Bourj Hammoud (Tour 1) and Khandaq Al Ghamiq (Tour 2).

Please note: Entrance is free but reservations are absolutely required. Please call 70.841.580 for reservations.