LuT.Tes
(ongoing)
After four years of research on unemployment both in Morocco & in Seine-Saint-Denis, n0mas decides to launch a multi medium art project on the complex topics related to inequality, poverty, education, discrimination & unemployment. COVID-19 hits and so n0mas goes from interviewing government officials, NGOs, and families, to volunteering and cleaning the stairways in the “towers” of St Denis projects (in S.F.C) outside Paris. LuT.Tes is born from these different experiences. It is large scale and will not be unnoticed.
The LuT.Tes project is currently being developed. Below you can find a glimpse at the scenery…
Why?
This initiative comes from a desire to share the spontaneous creativity of these "invisible", these "anonymous", resilient yet forgotten individuals. The Seine-Saint-Denis situation is troubling, but maybe not for the right reasons. One thing is certain, our youth, and especially those from certain neighborhoods and projects, need new innovative outlets to express themselves. They also need to feel heard and respected.
The stairwell within these projects is a semi-public space where residents find a certain lost freedom. It is a perimeter of security allowing them to express themselves away from malicious eyes. Some use the walls as an off-white drawing canvas on which expression (poems, writings, drawings, tags, graffiti, etc.) becomes possible. Speech is freed, demands, “menus”, emotions are splattered onto the walls. The corridors become a place of both safe expression and dialogue while remaining an epicentre of different types of deals. LuT.Tes is an attempt to pass the mic and give hommage to what comes of that exchange of trust and respect.