Video Projection Damaskus

The image of President Al-Assad was present everywhere on the facades and billboards of Damascus. In order to establish an opposition to this one-sided impression, the idea of the project was to portray the street vendors of  Damascus and have them appear in a video loop which focused on their individuality. By incorporating buildings in Damascus, Working Class Heroes was visible to everyone and at the same time gave the place a spatial dimension.

The project was based on showing 50 different portraits of street vendors in Damascus, which were projected onto a number of facades in the city centre, close to the Citadel and the Al Hamidiyeh souk. The names of the portrayed were part of the video, and a labyrinthine story arose in interplay with the portraits, in which the street vendors of Damascus took the leading roles in a modern Arabian Nights.

Damascus is the capital city of Syria with a population of 5 million, and is thought to be the oldest city in the world. It is a multicultural melting pot with intensive street trading. The square next to the Al Hamidiyeh souk sees a lively traffic of pedestrians and was therefore the ideal choice for the video projection.

The project was brought to an end by the secret police.