Lebanon — May 2026
BeyArt, in collaboration with the Beirut Museum of Art (BeMA), presents the inaugural edition of Urban Blooms, a participatory cultural initiative unfolding across Lebanon’s cultural and geographic landscapes. Each intervention engages a specific site through artistic practices rooted in its history, its communities, and its living heritage.
The first chapter takes place in Batroun, where students from Batroun Elementary Public School are at the core of the project. Through a structured program combining art history, technique, and collective practice, they are introduced to mural and street art and take part in its making. Their work extends from the classroom into the public realm, culminating in a permanent intervention within their school and direct participation in the city’s mural. BeMA’s Learning Department leads arts education initiatives that connect students to Lebanese art, artists, and cultural heritage. Through programs like Creative Pathways, it bridges classrooms with exhibitions and community spaces, using hands-on practices to foster expression, critical thinking, and meaningful engagement.
At a time when public schools across Lebanon are intermittently closed or repurposed as shelters amid ongoing turmoil, BeMA continues its commitment to arts learning, ensuring that access to creative expression and cultural engagement remains present for younger generations.
In this process, learning becomes creation, and creation enters the public sphere. Students contribute to cultural production, leaving a lasting imprint on their environment while engaging with the heritage that surrounds them.
The mural, realized at Chez Maguy by artist Marie Joe Ayoub and titled Mare Nostrum, draws from Batroun’s historical relationship to the sea. It reflects generations shaped by maritime life, translating this memory into a contemporary visual language of movement and marine forms.
Urban Blooms operates at the intersection of education, community, and artistic practice. Art becomes lived and accessible. Public space becomes a cultural canvas. A transmission takes place between artists and youth, shifting the experience of art from observation to participation.
Batroun marks the beginning of a series of interventions across Lebanon, each engaging a different landscape and community, and contributing to a broader cultural narrative grounded in identity, place, and transformation.
Event Details
Thursday, May 7
Student participation in the mural
9:30 AM – 1:00 PM
Friday, May 8
Public unveiling of the mural
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
About BeMA
The Beirut Museum of Art (BeMA) is dedicated to preserving, producing, and promoting Lebanese and regional art. With the Lebanese Ministry of Culture’s Collection under its care, BeMA serves as a platform for cultural knowledge and artistic exchange. Through its Learning and Outreach Department, it develops programs that integrate art into educational contexts across Lebanon, fostering critical engagement, creative practice, and connections between heritage and contemporary expression.
About BeyArt
BeyArt is a curatorial platform focused on activating public space through contemporary artistic interventions. Its work engages artists, communities, and sites in processes that embed art within everyday life and situate creation within its social and spatial context.