A Festival at the Intersection of Resistance and Imagination

From December 5 to 7, Les Urbaines returns with a bold new edition that reflects a dynamic intersection of the cultural and political moment. Through a program blending performance art, installations, and transdisciplinary projects, the festival becomes a space for artistic exploration—where new forms emerge in response to systemic injustice, contemporary struggles, and evolving social imaginaries.

Art as a Response to Systemic Violence

Rather than simply showcasing artworks, Les Urbaines creates a critical territory where experimental artistic practices engage with the present moment. In a sociopolitical landscape marked by neofascist influences and entrenched systems of oppression—whether extractivist, colonial, or imperialist—the festival embraces an overtly political artistic vision. The selected pieces confront, subvert, or transcend these forms of violence, turning the act of creation into one of resistance and radical truth-telling.

An Engaged and Poetic 29th Edition

Every project on display bears the imprint of the context in which it was created. Far from passive commentary, each piece acts as a subtle or powerful disruption of the status quo—woven through poetic, political, and performative gestures that challenge indifference and provoke reflection.

Spotlight on Key Performances

Charlie Osborne — SHIP Sket & Pike — SCENE ONE… / SCENE TWO…

📍 Aula de la Concorde — December 7, 9:00 PM–9:30 PM
Charlie Osborne presents a striking hybrid of concert, essay, and performance, fusing pop culture, horror, and hyperrealism. This work twists pop clichés to expose the tension between sincerity and spectacle—wrapped in a kitschy, romantic, and deliberately unsettling aesthetic.

Ayoub-Jasmina Moumen — BPM: Body, Pills, Metamorphosis

📍 Arsenic — December 5 (9:15 PM–11:00 PM) / December 6 (9:00 PM–10:45 PM)
This visceral performance explores the body as a site of memory, fear, and transformation. Drawing from the Tunisian stambali ritual, Ayoub-Jasmina Moumen addresses trans identity, addiction, and structural violence. The result is part political manifesto, part healing ritual, and part symbolic sacrifice.
Trigger warning: drug use, self-harm, transfeminicide, addiction.

PJ Horny — Personnage Principale

📍 Arsenic — December 5 & 6 (9:30 PM–10:15 PM) / December 7 (3:45 PM–4:30 PM)
Blending stand-up comedy, cabaret, autofiction, and TikTok aesthetics, PJ Horny deconstructs power and pop culture through a queer, ironic, and razor-sharp lens. Subversive and smart, this performance is both entertaining and deeply political.

Ghyzlène Boukaïla — Djebel al-Qāf — is it reachable?

📍 Espace Arlaud — December 6 (4:30 PM–5:00 PM) / December 7 (1:15 PM–1:45 PM)
This project merges documentary, speculative fiction, and Islamic mythology to follow a smuggler obsessed with an invisible mountain. Ghyzlène Boukaïla investigates symbolic and physical borders, suspended spaces, and the intimate and political geographies that shape human experience.

A Living Collective Exhibition

📍 Espace Arlaud — December 6 to 14
This group exhibition weaves together films, sculptures, installations, reimagined archives, and personal narratives. The result is a fluid, multifaceted, and embodied map of the worlds that emerge throughout this year’s festival—an experience to be felt, not just observed.