Organised by independent curator Yasmina Reggad, Collectives Encounter will showcase, from 04 March, four newly-commissioned works by ASA and Wideyed, The Photography Collective, Vea Collective and Rawiya, as well as a reconfiguration of existing work by Human Endeavour.

This year's theme is "The Flâneur" with Reggad inviting the different collectives to "look at this concept through the lens of this mobile observer and aesthete that Walter Benjamin presented as a conceptual and analytical tool to think about the modern city."

Reggad adds: "The exhibition aims to engage with the different characters of the flâneur in order to translate them into artistic methods for the exploration of the city - the best laboratory to study human nature and social processes."

The exhibition will introduce a newly-created collective founded by five female photographers from across the Middle East. Rawiya, which is composed of Laura Boushnak, Tanya Habjouqa, Tamara Abdul Hadi, Dalia Khamissy and Newsha Tavakolian, will present an insider's view of a region in flux, "balancing its contradictions while reflecting on social and political issues and stereotypes," says the collective.

Image © Mona Simon / Vea Collective.

London-based ASA will collaborate with the Wideyed collective to "map the flâneur", deploying "a tactic of participation in order to reveal multiple trajectories of interpretation and representation of the urban reality."

The five members of the Vea Collective, an European and South American photography collective, will, meanwhile, "deliberately deviate from their ordinary life and with a calculated passivity, take a stroll around artificial temples of leisure and idleness. With them, the flâneur becomes a voyeur and take the shapes of the tourist of the public realm," Reggad explains.

Collectives Encounter will also showcase the work of The Photography Collective, a group of West Midlands photographers and fine art professionals that "sketch a physiology of the flâneur, 'turn the boulevard into an intérieur' to eventually shift back to a world of constantly reflected observers in the city of merchandise."

Image © Alex Currie-Human Endeavour

Finally, Human Endeavour will offer a portrait of social housing complexes, shedding light on "the impossibility of the flâneur to resit the degeneration of postmodern urbis' planning."

The exhibition starts on 04 March until 03 April, with a guided tour with curator Yasmina Reggad planned for 06 March. For more information, visit the Collectives Encounter blog.