Image: Beirut Art Center
Beirut Art Center will open 'Suni‘a Bisihrika' ('Made With Your Magic') on July 30, 2026, presenting the Beirut chapter of an ongoing artistic project conceived by Tarek Abou El Fetouh and initiated by Dream City Festival in Tunis. The exhibition runs through October 25 and is described by the center as a chapter within a project that first appeared in Tunis in 2025 before traveling onward through further chapters planned for Damascus, Jeddah, and Baghdad.
According to the Beirut Art Center announcement, the project takes different form in each city. In Beirut, it brings together 22 artists from across the region, combining works commissioned across the project’s different chapters with new commissions created for the Beirut presentation. The center says the exhibition will also be developed specifically for Beirut as part of a wider public programme.
The exhibition’s title comes from a mnemonic phrase used to memorize the eight principal Arabic maqāms, the modal structures that shape much Arabic music. Beirut Art Center says the letter-by-letter phrase corresponds to Saba, Nahawand, ‘Ajam, Bayati, Sika, Hijaz, Rast, and Kurd. The project uses that framework to explore the cultural, social, and political dimensions of maqāms, and to examine how these musical forms reflect questions of regional identity and history.
The institutional presentation places the Beirut chapter in dialogue with both contemporary and historical material. Beirut Art Center says seven new commissions were developed for the project’s inaugural exhibition in Tunis, while seven further new commissions were produced for the Beirut chapter with support from Culture Resource (Al-Mawred Al-Thaqafy). The exhibition will also include selected works from the Saradar Collection and the Dalloul Art Foundation’s collection, spanning from the early decades of the twentieth century through the 1980s.
A notable feature of the Beirut presentation is the integration of Molo Café and Bar into the exhibition space. Beirut Art Center says the café becomes an integral part of the show, serving as a place for gathering, conversation, listening, and musical events organized around the eight principal maqāms. Over the exhibition’s 12-week duration, the public programme will include conversations, listening sessions, encounters, and musical events.
The center also says the café furniture features designs and textiles developed in collaboration with Oliver de Gemmayzeh and Skaff textiles. In the project text, Beirut Art Center frames the exhibition as an invitation to reconsider inherited forms, histories, and modes of listening through art, while positioning the Beirut chapter as part of an expanding constellation of practices that continues to evolve with each chapter.
The exhibition is scheduled to remain on view at Beirut Art Center in Beirut, Lebanon, from July 30 to October 25, 2026.
