00:07with teaching it's always a little bit stressful when I see a lot of people and
00:13they're all looking at you but then I get in the flow and I'm really really
00:19enjoying it it always feels great when a lot of people are doing this at once
00:25music is definitely an escape because this is the only thing we have to live for
00:40hmm okay my name is Tala Murtada I'm from Beirut I'm an art director and also I DJ right now
00:53Lebanon
00:53is going through a tough time we have a very corrupt government we can feel the tension and
01:01we can feel the amount of poverty that's increasing we also have a garbage situation because the
01:11government failed to find a proper solution to recycle or to remove the trash in a healthy way
01:18this is the magical spot in our house the only problem is that we're not really getting to enjoy
01:26it a lot because it kind of stinks it's just a shame because everything's so beautiful and but
01:34it just smells horrible you feel like you're in a transitional area because all the countries are
01:42around us are at war we could have a war anytime isis wants to come in or anytime some big
01:50leader
01:50decides that okay we need to take oil from Beirut or something we have a lot of people that came
01:59from
01:59Syria you can feel that the country is suffering we are very attached to Beirut in a very schizophrenic
02:08way because one day we hate it and one day we love it but it's very hard to let it
02:13go people really
02:19look forward to the weekend where they can just escape all of this and forget about the troubles of every
02:26day it all started with us throwing one party a week we found the Grand Factory and I started working
02:36with them on art direction and doing the setup we worked every single detail from scratch
02:46the space that we created is meant to take you out of your everyday life and into kind of a
02:53fantasy
02:58we make sure that our place is a little bit utopic compared to what Beirut is
03:05we try to make it a positive outlet but we can't be completely blind to what's happening we became
03:13the cool club and we realized that why not use it to do something good in a country that's bleeding
03:21thank you so much for joining we worked on the plus one campaign where we asked people to bring
03:27clothes and distributed them in areas that are suffering from the refugee situation another
03:34thing we're doing is we started a recycling initiative we are trying to recycle and reduce
03:40everything that we're consuming with that project we're going to also educate people to start doing
03:46the same at home there's a lot of awareness these days and more and more people that are speaking out
03:54and trying to make a difference there's been demonstrations on the streets by people for
04:00the first time for removing the political sects and being represented by the people instead of the
04:07government that's been there since years this makes you feel a little bit of hope and at some
04:14point I don't feel like throwing another party when there's a demonstration on the streets but stopping
04:20life isn't the solution so instead we're trying to make the party participate in what's happening in
04:31the country when you're in a city like this that needs you to be proactive because the government
04:38isn't supporting you too you feel like anything you can do to speak out or to send a message you
04:46do it
04:48we would have been depressed otherwise
