Thkio Ppalies is pleased to announce The Near and the Elsewhere, a multidisciplinary public program curated by Reem Rizk, running from September to October 2025. Featuring an installation, music performance, film screenings, talks, workshops, and a publication, the program critically interrogates the ways in which individual and systemic borders construct and control dominant notions of “Otherness.”

To speak of the Other is to speak of the edge of the self—a liminal space where identity is forged not in isolation, but through close encounters. While the Other remains fundamental to self-recognition, this dynamic has long been exploited by hegemonic structures, resulting in systems of oppression, exclusion, and erasure.

In response to evolving global crises marked by wars, mass displacement, and pervasive surveillance, The Near and the Elsewhere invites us to unlearn the architectures of othering that continue to fracture our shared realities. The program aims to foster embodied dialogues rooted in alternative modes of collective belonging and emergent identities.

For “The Near and the Elsewhere”, the Institute for Worldmaking (IWM) presents the second iteration of its pavilion—following its debut at Home Works Forum 9 at the Sursock Museum in Beirut—as an interactive, cumulative space for exchange and mutual learning. This spatial intervention transforms Thkio Ppalies into a living site for dialogue, with artifacts designed for gathering, reading, and conversation.

Throughout the program, the pavilion will host a projection of “Dua Express”, published by IWM’s Lab for Mythology and Alternative Intelligence, alongside contributions from Nicosia-based artists and collectives who will deposit publications in conversation with the ongoing events. Conceived as a porous index, the pavilion grows through participation, holding traces of the encounters that unfold within it.

Raafat Majzoub is the Director of the Institute for Worldmaking and a lecturer in the MIT Program in Art, Culture, and Technology. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the “Dongola Architecture Series”, co-editor of “Beyond Ruins” (Architangle) and “Design to Live” (MIT Press), and co-founder of the award-winning magazine “The Outpost”. Majzoub exhibits and lectures internationally, most recently in Sharjah (SB16, April Acts, Alternative School), Beirut (Home Works Forum 9, Beirut Art Center), and Nicosia (“Othoni”).

In 2022, Sandy Chamoun released her debut solo album, “Fata17”, a three-track sonic intervention created in response to Lebanon’s October 2019 revolution. Rooted in collective spontaneity and unity amid despair, the album preserves the sounds, emotions, and solidarity that once filled the streets of Beirut. Drawing on field recordings—voices, chants, and instruments—from protests across Lebanon, Iraq, and Chile, “Fata17” weaves together saxophone, bouzouki, percussion, and Chamoun’s voice into a resonant soundscape of resistance.

Sandy Chamoun is a Beirut-based musician and performing artist. She co-founded “The Great Departed” (2013), debuting with “La Bombe” (2016), and “SANAM” (2021), producing “Aykathani Malakon” (2023) and the upcoming “Samaatou Sawtan” (2025). Her latest collaborative album, “Ghadr” (2024), was created with Anthony Sahyoun and Jad Atoui. Chamoun released her debut solo album, “Fata17” (2022), has toured across Europe and beyond, and frequently performs as a lead vocalist at Metro al-Madina in Beirut. She studied audio-visual arts at the Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth and completed a bachelor’s degree in acting from The Lebanese University.

For Valeda, music-making is an internal, intuitive practice—a way to process and externalize lived experience. In performance, it becomes a conduit for connection, a shared language beyond words. Her work creates moments of collective communion, where, for a brief time, listeners’ souls meet within a tradition of sound and gathering that has endured for millennia.

Valeda is a musician and sound artist based between Montreal and Lefkosia, currently studying archaeology in Cyprus. Her work, informed by intuition, chaos, and fantasy, seeks to manifest the intangible through sound. She has been an artist in residence at MONOM (Berlin, 2023) and the Spatial Sound Institute (Budapest, 2021), with recent performances across Europe and North America, including MUTEK (Montreal), MOFO Festival (Paris), Amsterdam, Berlin, Warsaw (Soul Feeder), Los Angeles, Brussels (Printemps Numérique), and Sacho Festival (France). Her music has been released on Soul Feeder, Angoisse, s.M.i.L.e, Kopi Records, and susy.technology. As a member of the digital arts collective susy.technology, she has presented immersive A/V performances internationally, including ANTILOGY, which premiered in the MUTEK dome (Montreal, 2021), and a 2023 commission for MUTEK x INSCAPE at Usine C.