Are The Streets Still For Dreaming? is an exhibition that highlights an auto-ethnographic investigation conducted by the researcher Lynn Osman. This investigation documents a series of subcultural practices and urban rituals observed among underground metal and punk music bands, as well as skating groups, in Beirut from 2005 to 2019.
The project was published online in 2022 in collaboration with Rehla—a free experimental magazine at the intersection of philosophy, politics, cinema, arts, culture, and psychology—under the title Rehla: monshakin.
Having been long interested in the publication, we made the decision to translate the research into an exhibition format. Recognizing that neither of the exhibition's curators had been internal members of the scene, we worked with limited available materials such as recording snippets and low-quality visuals. Our approach focused on neither reconstructing the past nor projecting potential scenarios.
Amanda El Bitar and Mahdi Awada