Martyrs' Square, Beirut. Image © Rami Rizk
Public space is a legal terminology that tackles land ownership, suggesting that this type of parcel does not belong to anyone in particular, but to the state. Open, free, accessible to all, and financed by public money, these spaces are not only the results of planning but the consequences of the public practices they hold. Actually, people define how public space is used and what it means.
Protests, a powerful political tool for change, from the March on Washington in 1963, the Arab Spring in the early 2000s to recent Black Lives Matter Movement, are altering the world. In times like these, because people still need to “take to the streets” their issues, to be heard and seen, the notion of public space resurfaces as a topic of discussion.