This Art Platform Is Shaking the System With Wild, Wandering Projects That Make You Look Twice

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_{In a world of white cubes and velvet ropes, TAP (Temporary Art Platform) is doing something radically different. Born in Lebanon and branching into France, TAP is a nimble nonprofit that redefines what contemporary art can do, not just what it looks like. No gallery. No static walls. Just movement, experimentation, and purpose.}

_{And here’s the kicker. Despite “Temporary” being part of the name, TAP has been going strong for ten years. Their recent milestone celebration was a four-day, city-spanning program in Beirut titled Breath is Tide, developed in collaboration with the roaming Art Explora Festival. Floating museums and site-specific art for newborns? Yes, it’s all real and wildly inspiring.}

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Why “Temporary”? Why “Platform”? Here’s the Magic

_{Founded by curator Amanda Abi Khalil, TAP was created during a time when Beirut’s independent art spaces were rare, and public engagement in art was even rarer. Amanda imagined a structure without walls, one that could rise and recede based on energy, invitation, and urgency. Some years have two projects, others twelve. But TAP is always in motion.}

_{This isn’t your typical nonprofit. There’s no office, no salaried staff, no predictable calendar. Instead, it is a flexible and fiercely independent collective of curators and collaborators who hack, play, and provoke through public art.}

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Breath is Tide: Art That Inhales and Resists

_{From May 22 to 25, 2025, TAP celebrated its tenth anniversary with a deeply personal program called Breath is Tide. Though the museum-boat from Art Explora could not dock in Beirut due to regional conflict, TAP moved forward with the event as a powerful gesture of support for Lebanon’s cultural communities.}

_{The festival unfolded across hospitals, libraries, parks, and theaters. Each venue became a symbolic and literal breathing room within a city struggling with pollution, trauma, and political instability.}

_{The concept of “breath” resonated in many ways. In Beirut today, people often say they cannot breathe. Amanda shared that she lost loved ones to lung cancer this year and that the literal and metaphorical toxicity in the air was a driving force behind the program. Breath connects us, but as we learned during the pandemic, it can also become a threat. That tension became the soul of the celebration.}

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Where Did It Happen? Everywhere That Matters

_{The program spanned traditional venues and unexpected spaces:}

• _{At AUBMC (American University of Beirut Medical Centre), TAP unveiled six permanent artworks. This was the result of an eight-year collaboration and marks the first hospital-based public art commission in the region.}
• _{In the Karantina Public Park and Beirut RiverLESS Forest, TAP invited younger audiences to engage with the environment. One project reopened the closed play garden for teens, while the forest became a meditation on growth and resilience.}
• _{The National Library and Sursock Museum hosted programs that celebrated spaces of reflection. Performances for children, literary discussions, and contemplative installations turned these venues into cultural breathing rooms.}
• _{For the first time, TAP also worked inside Beirut Art Centre and Metropolis. Usually avoiding formal venues, this choice underscored the idea that we quite literally breathe through each other. Shared cultural spaces became symbolic lungs of the city.}

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What Kind of Art Does TAP Champion?

_{TAP supports art that interrupts. Art that wakes people up. Art that might confuse or provoke more than it comforts. TAP believes that the most powerful artistic encounters are the ones that linger, unsettle, and ask questions.}

_{One unforgettable example was by artist Ahmad Ghossein. He turned a shared taxi ride into a living artwork by streaming footage of everyday passengers as they chatted, laughed, and debated their way through the city. The cab ride became a portrait of Beirut’s pulse and rhythm. It was Beirut breathing in real time.}

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From Newspapers to Nurseries: TAP’s Evolution

_{Over the last ten years, TAP has taken art far beyond galleries and into the everyday. Some of the platform’s most memorable projects include:}

• _{“Works on Paper,” a 2016 series where artists placed interventions in Lebanese newspapers}
• _{Artworks staged in car washes, rooftops, swimming pools, and parking lots}
• _{Billboard takeovers across Beirut, with more to come this fall in partnership with BeMA}

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_{Spanning multiple years, these projects include: Works on Paper, a 2016 series of artist interventions across four Lebanese newspapers (featuring Annabel Daou in The Daily Star); Passion Fruit by Zé Tepedino, 2025; and Monica Basbous’s 2023 poster installation and performance, How Long is the Coast of Lebanon?}

_{And now, TAP is setting its sights on a new frontier. They are launching art commissions for children ages zero to three. Contemporary artists are being invited to create custom-designed furniture and one-to-one scale installations for nurseries. It is a beautiful next step that shows how art can speak to people at every stage of life.}

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A Logo That Breathes Like the Work It Represents

_{Even TAP’s logo tells a story. Designed by Oficina de Disseny in Barcelona, the logo has a loose, handwritten style that changes color with every visit. It mirrors the platform’s informal, spontaneous, and context-driven nature. The rotating color palette and playful design reflect TAP’s belief in hacking, improvising, and creating with what’s available.}

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Looking Ahead: Bigger Boats and Deeper Roots

_{TAP’s future is already in motion. Their postponed collaboration with Art Explora will return in 2027 when the museum-boat finally docks in Beirut. Before that, the platform is continuing its billboard series and expanding its ecological art program.}

_{In Rio de Janeiro, TAP just launched a new phase of its Art, Ecology, and the Commons project. With support from the Goethe-Institut and the French Institute, three artists are now in residence. Their work will culminate in a public intervention in one of Rio’s most beautiful parks this September.}

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Final Breath: TAP Refuses to Fit Inside a Frame

_{TAP is not a gallery. It is not a museum. It is not an event space. It is a living platform that breathes with its surroundings. It thrives in uncertainty. It adapts, listens, and reimagines what art can be.}

_{Temporary in name only, TAP is not going anywhere. It will keep surfacing wherever breath is needed most.}

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