Vitrine Bermondsey Square is delighted to present a site-specific installation by Lebanese artist Raed Yassin. ‘Noon’ is a series of eight photographs produced by Yassin between 2010 and 2011. Shown together with a new sound piece, they compose the site-­specific installation entitled ‘Postponed Noon’, which transforms the connotations of both spaces: the square outside on the one hand and the space inside the vitrine on the other.

Taken from different bedroom windows in Beirut, these eight photographs conjure the atmosphere of a latent dream the artist finds himself in when he wakes up – the moment when perception is blinded by daylight around noon, and becomes by alchemy a protracted contemplation, a musing daydream.

Both parts of the installation alter the perception of the space in which they are placed. The eight windows in the photographic series are confined to an interior space, although the images open to an exterior cityscape, a distant one: the city of Beirut. In the square, a 24-­hour-­long sound piece recorded in the artist’s apartment in Beirut matches this intimate terrain of reverie, albeit interrupted at times by mundane sounds that transform Vitrine into an apartment.

‘Postponed Noon’ invites us to this “escapade of imagination’’ through the “finesses of experience of intimacy’’, in which the intimate space activated by the sound piece opens up to a view of a strange yet familiar city, appearing blurred through eight windows.

Inspired by Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space, the concept of this indoor-­outdoor installation confuses the obvious geometry and dialectics of division between outside and inside when brought into play in metaphorical domains.

‘’In any case, inside and outside, as experienced by the imagination, can no longer be taken in their simple reciprocity; consequently, by omitting geometrical references when we speak of the first expressions of being, by choosing more concrete, more phenomenologically exact inceptions, we shall come to realize that the dialectics of inside and outside multiply with countless diversified nuances.’’ Gaston Bachelard, “The Dialectics of Outside and Inside” in The Poetics of Space.

Raed Yassin was born in Beirut in 1979. He graduated from the theatre department at the Institute of Fine Arts in Beirut in 2003. An artist and musician, Yassin's work often originates from an examination of his personal narratives and their workings within a collective history, through the lens of consumer culture and mass production. He has exhibited and performed his work in numerous museums, festivals and venues across Europe, the Middle East, the United States and Japan, including the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo (2013), the Beirut Art Center (2013), the New Museum in New York (2012), Kalfayan Galleries, Athens (2011), Museum of Photography Thessaloniki (2011); "Sharjah Biennial 10" (2011), Delfina Foundation in London (2010-­‐2011) where he has completed a residency program, "Manifesta 8" in Murcia (2010-­‐2011), Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (2011), De -­‐ Ateliers in Amsterdam following a 2-­‐year residency, "Home Works 5" in Beirut, (2010) and Photo Cairo 4 (2008). Upcoming shows include: Singapore Art Museum (2013) and the 4th Thessaloniki Biennial of Contemporary Art (2013). Yassin was awarded the Fidus Prize for The Best of Sammy Clark at Beirut Art Center's Exposure (2009), the Abraaj Capital Art Prize (2012), the AFAC grant for production (2010), the YATF grant for production (2008 & 2012) and the Cultural Resource grant for production (2008). Yassin is one of the organizers of IRTIJAL Festival, and has released 11 music albums and founded the production company Annihaya in 2009. He is also a founding member of "Atfal Ahdath" a Beirut based art collective. He currently lives and works in Beirut and represented by Kalfayan Galleries, Athens.