THE COLLECTIVE
Tashattot (Arabic for dispersion) is an art collective based in Belgium dedicated to supporting visual artists, musicians, film makers and cultural practitioners at large, originally from the SWANA region and currently “dispersed” in Europe. The collective aims at creating opportunities and collaborations for these expatriate artists.
Through residencies, exhibitions, concerts, workshops, and public discussions, Tashattot supports artists in continuing their practices and connecting with local and international scenes.
Tashattot is a work in progress with a fluid and evolving set of actions. It currently is and will always remain open to new ideas and experiences; continuously building on lessons learned and with practice. The collective strongly believes in the efficiency of open discussions, as the only way to grow and better address SWANA expat artists needs and aspirations, it therefore remains open to reviews, critiques, evaluations or any opinions related to its mechanisms.
Contact us:
contact@tashattot.com
Kaaistudios
05.06 - 06.06
Rue Notre-Dame-du-Sommeil 81, 1000 BXL
ALL TICKET PROFIT GOES TO TANSEQEYE SHAABEYE’S LEBANON EMERGENCY RELIEF FUND => DONATION LINK
05.06 - 06.06
Rue Notre-Dame-du-Sommeil 81, 1000 BXL
ALL TICKET PROFIT GOES TO TANSEQEYE SHAABEYE’S LEBANON EMERGENCY RELIEF FUND => DONATION LINK
SWANA Literature & Art Festival
︎︎
Join us for the first edition of Tashattot’s SWANA Literature and Art Festival in Brussels!
The festival entails a book fair that serves as a platform to showcase and sell publications from the South West Asia and North Africa region, highlighting the richness and diversity of its contemporary literary and cultural production. Beyond the book stands, the program includes several activities connecting literature with illustration, audiovisual arts and
more.
ALL TICKET PROFIT GOES TO
TANSEQEYE SHAABEYE’S LEBANON EMERGENCY RELIEF FUND =>
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TANSEQEYE SHAABEYE’S LEBANON EMERGENCY RELIEF FUND =>
︎︎
Book Fair Participants
Alifbata
︎︎
Book Fair Participants
Alifbata
Alhayya Magazine
the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies
Amr Aboulhuda
Asma Laajimi
Barrack Zailaa Rima
Charbel Alkhoury
Christina Atik
Flyers for Palestine
Haleh Chinikar
Huwawa
Journal Safar
Karen Keyrouz
Khan Aljanub
Lagrange Points
Learning Falastin
Lujayn Hasan
Mophradat
Nour Hifaoui
Nebila Oguz
Omar Abhar
Plan Bey
Postmortem
rile* Books
Rita Habib
Sabbar
Samandal
Think Tanger
Trigger
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PROGRAM
Friday June 5th
16h: Doors Open
18h-19h30:
Mapping Our World, Workshop led by Marina Mardas
20h30-21h30:
A Separation from Habit, Concert by Joy Moughanni
Saturday June 6th
16h: Doors Open
18h-20h:
Paper Assemblies: A Conversation on publishing, traces and collective practices
20h30-21h30:
What Shimmers, Burns: Live drawing performance by Karen Keyrouz and Sainte Marina
21h30-23h:
DJ Set by Mayss
︎︎
Mapping Our World
Workshop Led by Marina Mardas
The workshop introduces participants to the concept of Postmortem, as developed in the eponymous publication, inviting them to approach the present as an object of retrospective inquiry. Through a series of guided exercises, participants will produce individual sets of words that reflect their perception and experience of the contemporary world. These contributions will then be brought together and collectively organized into a semantic structure, allowing categories and patterns to emerge organically. The session culminates in the construction of a shared semantic tree, offering a fragmented yet meaningful representation of the present. Beyond its formal outcome, the workshop creates a space for dialogue and reflection, exploring how individual perceptions converge, or resist convergence, into a collective understanding shaped by diverse social positions.
Marina Mardas is a Lebanese diasporic multidisciplinary artist based in Paris. She is the founder and curator of Postmortem, an independent paper publication bringing together SWANA and European creatives to reflect on the contemporary world through creative writing, critical essays, and visual art. Her work explores the intersections of language, memory, and perception, often approaching the present as an object of analysis. In her personal practice, she works across sound design, writing, and visual forms, developing research-based and experimental approaches that question how individual and collective experiences are articulated and archived.
Marina Mardas is a Lebanese diasporic multidisciplinary artist based in Paris. She is the founder and curator of Postmortem, an independent paper publication bringing together SWANA and European creatives to reflect on the contemporary world through creative writing, critical essays, and visual art. Her work explores the intersections of language, memory, and perception, often approaching the present as an object of analysis. In her personal practice, she works across sound design, writing, and visual forms, developing research-based and experimental approaches that question how individual and collective experiences are articulated and archived.
Paper Assemblies
A conversation on publishing, traces, and collective practices
Tom Viaene (moderator) - editor of the Trigger book series at FOMU – Museum of Photography Antwerp.
+ Joachim Ben Yakoub - art worker engaged in writing, curating, and dramaturgy, active in collective research and teaching in Brussels (L'École de recherche graphique) and Antwerp (Sint Lucas Antwerpen).
+ Joseph Kai - comic artist.
+ Charbel Alkhoury - visual artist and co-founder of Tashattot Collective.
This conversation departs from Trigger #6: Assemblies but moves beyond the book as object, approaching publishing as a form of gathering. Through the lens of “paper assemblies,” it explores how printed matter such as magazines, posters, and postcards can carry traces, circulate stories, and continue to bring people together across time and place.
Drawing on his research into Ahl El Hijra, a Moroccan collective active in 1980s Schaerbeek, Joachim Ben Yakoub reflects on how such paper traces transmit collective memory not as fixed history, but as something continuously revisited and reworked. These materials remain active through moments of reactivation, where past and present meet in conversation and shared experience.
Joseph Kai is a Lebanese comics author currently living in Paris, exploring the realms of realistic and speculative fiction. Joseph’s debut graphic novel L’Intranquille (Casterman, 2021) got recently released in English by Street Noise Books (US) under the title Restless. It delves into the anxious behaviour, sexual desires and dreams of Samar, a queer artist living in Lebanon during one of the country's most tumultuous periods in history. In 2010, Joseph Kai became a contributing member of Samandal, publishing several short works and later taking on the role of editor in chief for Geography in 2015, 3000 in 2020 and Cutes, a collection of queer and trans* comics in 2023.
In parallel, Tashattot Collective engages from their work on dispersion and collective care across SWANA and Europe, creating spaces where fragmented communities reconnect and new forms of assembly emerge.
The panel considers how publishing connects dispersed geographies, and how traces, memories, and stories continue to circulate, gather, and shift meaning over time.
+ Joachim Ben Yakoub - art worker engaged in writing, curating, and dramaturgy, active in collective research and teaching in Brussels (L'École de recherche graphique) and Antwerp (Sint Lucas Antwerpen).
+ Joseph Kai - comic artist.
+ Charbel Alkhoury - visual artist and co-founder of Tashattot Collective.
This conversation departs from Trigger #6: Assemblies but moves beyond the book as object, approaching publishing as a form of gathering. Through the lens of “paper assemblies,” it explores how printed matter such as magazines, posters, and postcards can carry traces, circulate stories, and continue to bring people together across time and place.
Drawing on his research into Ahl El Hijra, a Moroccan collective active in 1980s Schaerbeek, Joachim Ben Yakoub reflects on how such paper traces transmit collective memory not as fixed history, but as something continuously revisited and reworked. These materials remain active through moments of reactivation, where past and present meet in conversation and shared experience.
Joseph Kai is a Lebanese comics author currently living in Paris, exploring the realms of realistic and speculative fiction. Joseph’s debut graphic novel L’Intranquille (Casterman, 2021) got recently released in English by Street Noise Books (US) under the title Restless. It delves into the anxious behaviour, sexual desires and dreams of Samar, a queer artist living in Lebanon during one of the country's most tumultuous periods in history. In 2010, Joseph Kai became a contributing member of Samandal, publishing several short works and later taking on the role of editor in chief for Geography in 2015, 3000 in 2020 and Cutes, a collection of queer and trans* comics in 2023.
In parallel, Tashattot Collective engages from their work on dispersion and collective care across SWANA and Europe, creating spaces where fragmented communities reconnect and new forms of assembly emerge.
The panel considers how publishing connects dispersed geographies, and how traces, memories, and stories continue to circulate, gather, and shift meaning over time.
A Separation from Habit
Live music performance by Joy Moughanni
Joy Moughanni is a Beirut-based producer, engineer, and songwriter, as well as a partner at Tunefork Studios. As a sought-after production collaborator in Beirut’s alternative scene, producing several albums with regional and international artists. Joy’s work explores sound in relational contexts and archives, drawing from his architectural studies and spatial sonic installations. Recently, he has been sonically exploring themes of personal and political manipulation through his debut solo album “A Separation From Habit” Voted #48 on The Quietus 2025 Album of the year.
What Shimmers, Burns
live drawing performance with Marina Mardas (music) & Karen Keyrouz (drawing)
What Shimmers, Burns is a fully improvised performance that merges live visuals by illustrator Karen Keyrouz with live music by musician Marina Mardas, marking their first collaboration. The live drawing performance is a dynamic process in which the drawings unfold in real time and interact with sound, creating a narrative that transforms before the audience’s eyes.
Karen Keyrouz is a Lebanese artist based in Paris. Working across drawing, writing, drawing performance, sculpture, and installation, her practice stems from comics and places narration at its core. Using ink as a central medium, she develops a visual language shaped by stains and gestures. She is the author of Flux et Reflux (2018) and Some Dances to Combat the Headache (2024). Her work currently explores spatial and immersive forms of narration.
Marina Mardas (aka Sainte Marina) is a Paris-based sound artist and producer, crafting immersive sonic landscapes between dark ambient, noise and melodic fragments. Layering textures, distorted poetry and ritual-like chants, she builds shifting narratives that shimmer between saturation and silence. Focusing on the materiality of sound and its emotional resonance, she explores a cathartic, healing use of frequencies — shaping spaces that oscillate between unpredictable abrasive tension and fluid release. She recently released a track on the Moroccan label Raghoul, and her first physical release as part of a compilation by the Barcelona-based platform Zilzal.
Karen Keyrouz is a Lebanese artist based in Paris. Working across drawing, writing, drawing performance, sculpture, and installation, her practice stems from comics and places narration at its core. Using ink as a central medium, she develops a visual language shaped by stains and gestures. She is the author of Flux et Reflux (2018) and Some Dances to Combat the Headache (2024). Her work currently explores spatial and immersive forms of narration.
Marina Mardas (aka Sainte Marina) is a Paris-based sound artist and producer, crafting immersive sonic landscapes between dark ambient, noise and melodic fragments. Layering textures, distorted poetry and ritual-like chants, she builds shifting narratives that shimmer between saturation and silence. Focusing on the materiality of sound and its emotional resonance, she explores a cathartic, healing use of frequencies — shaping spaces that oscillate between unpredictable abrasive tension and fluid release. She recently released a track on the Moroccan label Raghoul, and her first physical release as part of a compilation by the Barcelona-based platform Zilzal.
DJ set by Mayss
Mayss is a Jordanian DJ, producer, curator, writer, and web developer. She is the founder of Dreaming Live, a podcast platform dedicated to uncompromised creative expression: Art as the voice of our Innermost, as opposed to art as entertainment.The podcast has featured conversations with guests such as David Lynch, Martin Rev, andLydia Lunch. Dreaming Live also operates as a record label, created to rally artists in support of Gaza; from treating injured children to supporting farmers. Its compilations feature Mayss’ own work alongside tracks by Suzanne Ciani, Martin Rev, Nicolas Jaar, and others. Behind the decks and in the radio booth, her sound is impossible to confine–as broad-ranging as, in her own words, 'my love for the infinite interdimensional universe of music'.Her sets often thread together experimental textures, drawing on bands likeCoil, group A,and Minimal Violence, while paying homage to the labels, scenes, and sonic traditions that continue to inspire her.
︎︎This project is made possible with the joint efforts of Kaaistudios and Tashattot Collective.