Decolonizing Architecture: One of ARTFORUM’s Top Ten Projects
In January 2010, ARTFORUM named Decolonizing Architecture one of the top ten projects of the decade. Tirdad Zolghadr writes:
“I’m a little tired of interdisciplinarity à la “exhibition research,” where we play semi-Foucauldian journalist or quasi-Rancièrian ethnographer with boring impunity. But decolonizing.ps shows it’s still possible to cross disciplines and act like adults. With a subtle sense of site and medium, format and form, Sandi Hilal, Alessandro Petti, and Eyal Weizman use architecture to articulate possibilities of decolonization: “Recognizing that Israeli colonies and military bases are amongst the most excruciating instruments of domination, the project assumes that a viable approach to the issue of their appropriation is to be found [in] inaugurating an ‘arena of speculation’ that incorporates varied cultural and political perspectives.” Said “arena” includes landscape designs for interrupting the colonial apparatus, proposals that strive to be both pragmatic and militant, inventive and long-term.”
Decolonizing Architecture is a collaboration between the haudenschildGarage and London-based architect and theorist Eyal Weizman and Bethlehem-based architects Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti. Decolonizing Architecture is a multi-pronged project that addresses the possibilities of understanding and redesigning Palestine in preparation for a post-evacuation time and context through two case studies, the former military base, Oush Grab, and the settlement of P’sagot. A scale model, architectural plans and public events, including an exhibition and symposium with Eloisa Haudenschild, Steve Fagin, Sandi Hilal, Eyal Weizman, Alessandro Petti and Lieven de Cauter at the Bozar Center for Fine Art in Brussels (10/31/08 – 1/4/09), were produced around plans for turning the fabric of the case studies into Palestinian public institutions.
Decolonizing Architecture was originally conceptualized and its pilot stage produced in dialogue with Eloisa Haudenschild and Steve Fagin, partners in the haudenschildGarage, Spare Parts projects.
The Manual of Decolonization is the result of a residency that Salottobuono (www.salottobuono.net) made in August 2008 in Beit Sahour (Bethlehem) at Decolonizing Architecture. The manual is a choral work where different approaches stood out at the same time. The production of the manual was supported by the haudenschildGarage and based upon a series of meetings with the “stakeholders” in this process. It includes representatives of various organizations and individuals, the local community, members of various NGOs, government and municipal bodies, academic and cultural institutions, local residents and resident associations. Click here to view the manual.
The manual and scale model will be on view in Los Angeles at SUPERFRONT as part of the exhibtion UNPLANNED: Research and Experiments at the Urban Scale (3/25/10 – 7/2/10).
In 2009, the project was presented at the Venice Biennale and in 2008 it was selected for the 11th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale. Decolonizing Architecture has also been exhibited at COAC in Barcelona (2009) and at the 4th International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam (2009-2010).
The hG, Spare Parts project Decolonizing Architecture was exhibited at the BOZAR Center for Fine Art in Brusseles from October 31, 2008 - January 4, 2009. On October 31, a symposium was held with Eyal Weizman, Sandi Hilal, Alessandro Petti, Elo ...
On May 6 2008, Eyal Weizman presented Decolonizing Architecture at REDCAT in Los Angeles. Click here for more information about this presentation. Selected by ARTFORUM in January of 2010 as one of the top ten projects of the decade, Decoloni ...
Selected by ARTFORUM in January of 2010 as one of the top ten projects of the decade, Decolonizing Architecture was originally conceptualized and its pilot stage produced in dialogue with Eloisa Haudenschild and Steve Fagin, partners in the hau ...
The haudenschildGarage, Spare Parts Projects hG, Spare Parts is a 3-year cycle of projects commissioned and produced by Director Eloisa Haudenschild and Commissioning Editor Steve Fagin from 2006 - 2009 that encouraged the juxtaposition of t ...
On February 10, 2007 the haudenschildGarage, Spare Parts projects were launched with the event CHEEK2CHEEK. hG, Spare Parts is a 3-year cycle of projects commissioned and produced by Director Eloisa Haudenschild and Commissioning Editor Steve F ...
