20 Gorgeous Murals in Ouzai’s Ouzville District
Ouzville is a project I’m really excited about. I had heard about world-renowned Retna painting a part of it a while back, and home-grown legends Ashekman more recently. So, on Saturday, I went down to have lunch with Ashekman’s Omar in the area. We also met Ayyad Nasser, the man behind this initiative, who was hosting several donors, collaborators and artists commissioned for ongoing and upcoming pieces over lunch too.
Nasser’s plan is ambitious, and he’s been working on it for almost 2 years. The initial plan was to fly in renowned street artists to come and create art on the mounds of garbage most of Lebanon was drowning in in 2015. However, by the time the project kicked off, the garbage was being removed off the streets, hidden from our eyes, but not from the smells that greet us at Beirut’s Southern and Northern entrances every day since…
The artists were excited to come tag Beirut with their work, so Nasser tried to find a part of the city that would be open to being slowly transformed into a go-to destination for urban art enthusiasts everywhere. And that’s how Ouzville was born.
Nasser’s plans extend beyond that, and he hopes Ouzville will remind Lebanese that there is a lot more that unites, than divides them. It’s his way of giving back to community, an attempt to leave the world a little better than when he first got here.
Of course, I can already hear some of you typing up comments about how painting graffiti on a neglected community won’t really help pull the area out of its tough socioeconomic situation. True. But, art never hurt anyone, and the fact the area is quickly becoming a hot destination for these colorful murals by artists from around the world, it’s certain that more people will be willing to let go of their prejudices about the area and come down and spend a few hours walking around, having a meal, looking for old villas nestled on what used to be the seashore and maybe having a freshly-squeezed cup of juice as airplanes land a few hundred meters next to you.
Here are some photos I took while I was there. I will be regularly checking up on the project and updating you guys with photos!
