Layan Srour is a Detroit-based artist and curator exploring sound and visual art, with a practice focused on memory, movement, displacement, and belonging. Layan’s artistic vocabulary is deeply shaped by her upbringing in Beirut’s underground scene in music, visual art, and film.

She is one half of Taqsim, an Arabic electronic and experimental duo, with Yvonne Pruneau, rooted in improvisation and personal soundscapes recorded in Lebanon. Drawing on these textures and a search for the feeling of home, Taqsim blends synthesizers, sampled drums, and layered soundscapes to connect Detroit with Beirut’s resilient energy. Their work has been featured in New Music Detroit’s Strange Beautiful Music Festival and Third Place [MusicFest].

She curates Jalasat / جلسات (Arabic for “gatherings”), a performance series presented by the Arab American National Museum and the City of Dearborn, which highlights local musicians and small businesses. Through this series, she reframes site-specific performance as a point of community care, cultural exchange, and collective storytelling.

Beyond performance, Srour curates community-centered cultural programming, including Jalasat/جلسات, a site-specific performance series presented by the Arab American National Museum and the City of Dearborn, and Sound and Spoken, a Beirut–Detroit poetry and music exchange. Layan holds both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in music from Wayne State University.

Her practice extended through curations and collaborations with the the Arab American National Museum’s Arab American Film Festival, Arab America Foundation, Radio alHara, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and the Detroit Jazz Festival. She is also the creator of “40 Minutes With”, an interview series with the Arab America Foundation documenting Arab and Arab-American musicians across the United States.

Photo by Brandon Fecteau