The Prince Claus Awards
The Prince Claus Fund’s Awards Programme celebrates and brings to public attention outstanding achievements in the field of culture and development. Awards are given annually to individuals, groups, organisations or institutions in recognition of their contribution within the Prince Claus Fund’s areas of interest.

Frontiers of Reality
The theme of the 2010 Prince Claus Awards is Frontiers of Reality. Within this context, the Prince Claus Fund has considered individuals and organizations whose exceptional performance not only challenges and changes the boundaries of our reality, but who, in doing so, contribute to the development of society. The ten laureates will be presented at ceremonies in their respective countries by Ambassadors of the Netherlands.

Decolonizing Architecture is honoured for introducing a non-traditional approach to development in conflict and post-conflict situations, for providing valuable speculation on the future realities of disputed territories, for its critical challenge to outdated urban planning theories based on a more peaceful world, and for highlighting the role of architecture and visualisation in creating and altering the frontiers of reality.

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FUTURE ARCHAEOLOGY documentary, by Armin Linke and Francesco Mattuzzi, produced in the conceptual framework of Decolonizing Architecture

Official cinema premiere
When :: 09-09-2010
Where :: 67th Mostra Internazionale del cinema di Venezia (Venice, IT)
Room :: SALA PERLA
Time :: 05.15 pm
Opening : public, credited

The project of a 3D [stereoscopic] film by Armin Linke and Francesco Mattuzzi, completed with the visual effects created by Francesco Siddi, refers to the 19th century invention of the stereoscopic technology, that was developed exactly for archaeological and military purposes.

The use of stereoscopy offers a new dimension to the vision of space and to the understanding of colonization. The entire film becomes a sort of magic box in which the gaze travels across a surreal world that is possibly facing a moment of radical transformation. it is at the same time a document of a specific site in a specific period. As opposed to the images saturating our media screens, the stereoscopic visions linger over the banality of everyday life, revealing and unveiling the violence and drama of occupation.

The images together with the soundscape created by Renato Rinaldi, are accompanied by stories. These narratives make the landscape (and the imagination related to it) readable, recreating a dimension of lived places.

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Opening: Saturday 25.September at 18:00

Exhibition period: 25.September-24 October 2010
Opening hours:
Wednesday-Friday 12-17
Saturday-Sunday 12-16

http://www.0047.org/
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The Red Castle and the Lawless Line: A legal-architectural fable of extraterritorial transformation

In 1993 a series of secret talks held in Oslo between Israeli and Palestinian representatives inaugurated what was later referred to as the “Oslo Process”. As is well known, this process defined three types of territories within the West Bank. Area A under Palestinian control, area B under Israeli military control and Palestinian civilian control, and area C under full Israeli control. When the process collapsed and the temporary organization of the occupied territories solidified into a permanent splintered geography of multiple prohibitions, a fourth place has suddenly been discovered. Existing in between all others - it was the width of the line separating them. Less than a millimeter thick when drawn on the scale of 1:20,000, it measured more than 5 meters in real space.
The project dives into the thickness of this line then follows it along the edges of villages and towns, across fields, olive and fruit orchards, roads, gardens, kindergartens, fences, terraces, homes, public buildings, a football stadium, a mosque and finally a large castle recently built. Within this line is a zone undefined by law, a legal limbo that pulls in like a vortex all different forces, institutions, organizations and characters that operate within and around it.
With areas A, B and C already claimed by different forms of cooperating governments that rule the West Bank, we see in the thickness of the line an extraterritorial territory, perhaps “all that remains” from Palestine, a thin but powerful space for potential political transformations. Political spaces in Palestine are not defined by its legal zones, but operate thoughts legal voids. Investigating the clash of geopolitical lines onto the domestic space of the castle, and operating on the margin between architecture, cartography and legal practice, we seek to bring up a case that calls for an anarchic regime of political autonomy to inhabit this line. It is in the extraterritorial dimension of these seam lines, small tears in the territorial system, that we see the possibility for tearing apart of the entire system of divisions.

Decolonizing Architecture, an architectural studio residency run by Alessandro Petti, Sandi Hilal and Eyal Weizman, has been in recent years engaged in a series of projects investigating and intervening in the extreme spatial conditions that exist within the Palestinian territories. Their projects propose transformation — some provocative others ironic — of the existing architecture of Israeli colonization. In the summer of 2010 they lead, in cooperation with UNESCO and Al-Quds/Bard University local authorities and NGOs an international residency and summer school in the village of Battir the West Bank. This project was dealing with the subversion of another powerful reality in the colonial matrix of control — its legal architecture. With their conceptual signature of working with but also subverting the existing order, they have proposed a new hopeful reality to inhabit this thinnest of geopolitical zones. The resulting installation is an architectural-legal claim that inhabits the space of gallery 0047 in the context of the Oslo Architecture Triennale.

by Decolonizing Architecture

The project was produced in the framework of Battir International Summer Program, a teaching research partnership between UNESCO/Battir Landscape Office and Al-Quds Bard Honors College.
With the support of UNESCO.

In 2007, after a few years of engaging in spatial research and theory, taking the conflict over Palestine as our main case study, we have decided to shift the mode of our engagement and establish an architectural institute based around a studio/residency program in Beit Sahour, Bethlehem. Decolonizing Architecture Institute (DAi) seeks to use spatial practice as a form of political intervention and narration. The work of the residency is based around a network of local affiliations and the historical archives we have gathered in our previous work. Our practice has to continuously engage with a complex set of architectural problems centered around one of the most difficult dilemmas of political practice: how to act both propositionally and critically within an environment in which the political force field, as complex as it may be, is so dramatically skewed. Is intervention at all possible? How could spatial practice within the “here and now” of the conflict negotiate the existence of institutions, legal and spatial realities without becoming complicit with the unequal reality they produce? How to find an “autonomy of practice” that is both critical and transformative?

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The Delfina Foundation presents The Spacemakers, a group exhibition that explores artistic perspectives on the immediate challenges of creating a home, in some of today’s most diverse and harried urban landscapes.

With Taysir Batniji, decolonizing.ps (Alessandro Petti, Sandi Hilal, Eyal Weizman), and Jawad al Malhi. Films and videos by Nikolaj Bendix, Hala Elkoussy, mounir fatmi, Bouchra Khalil, Judy Price, Basma Sharif and Solmaz Shahbazi.

The Spacemakers is taking place across two venues (Edinburgh College of Art – Tent Gallery and Sleeper). It is part of a biennial series of events produced by Beyond Borders Productions Ltd.

Edinburgh College of Art (Tent Gallery), Art Space & Nature, Edinburgh College of Art, Evolution House, 78 Westport, Edinburgh EH1 2LE: Mon – Fri, 10:00 – 17:00, Saturday: 11:00 – 17:00
sleeper, 6 Darnaway Street, Edinburgh, EH3 6BG: Mon – Fri: 10:00 – 17:00, Closed on Saturdays
30 July - 24 August

For press enquiries or images, please contact Claudia Wolf: claudia@delfinafoundation.com or +44 (0) 207 233 5344.

08 may - 26 June 2010

aut. architektur und tirol

im adambräu
lois welzenbacher platz 1
6020 innsbruck. austria

t +43.512.57 15 67
f +43.512.57 15 67 12
e office@aut.cc

‘Forensic Architecture: Only the Criminal Can Solve the Crime’

Date: 16 June 2010
From: 6.00pm to 7.00pm followed by a reception.
Location: Clore Management Centre, Room B01
Free entry; booking required.
Please reserve a place by emailing Jason Edwards: j.edwards@bbk.ac.uk

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/sshp/news/paul-hirst-memorial-lecture-2010

IN AND OUT OF EDUCATION… What Can We Teach Nowadays

The disputed crisis of art education has been widely scrutinized, especially in Europe, over the last decade. Little debated, arts education in Lebanon needs careful examination and questioning keeping in mind the specificities of the local context. Despite several art degree-granting universities in Lebanon, the gap between what is being taught in academia and what is actually being practiced within the contemporary art scene is widening. However, this terrain hosts a continuous development of informal and experimental learning platforms: the city of Beirut is a sphere in which students, artists and professionals meet and exchange ideas in a constant process of everyday education. Individuals debate and seek new knowledge in relation to one another and within their surroundings. The theme ‘In and Out of Education … What Can We Teach Nowadays’ looks at the possibilities of reinventing and enhancing the specific ‘in and out’ situation of informal arts education in relation to Beirut. This theme also underlies an attempt to set up a new educational programme through Ashkal Alwan for Contemporary Arts - The Home Works Academy - which will use the city of Beirut and its wider context as its campus, its research topic, its platform and again the site from which ideas will sprout.

‘In and Out of Education…’ poses the question of how to develop an experiential approach to arts education, which not only offers a challenging and creative space within society but also responds to the city’s urgent questions and uses its wider context as its main curriculum. As part of this theme Ashkal Alwan will invite artists, thinkers and collectives who have actively engaged with artistic research and education to critically reflect on the question ‘What Can We Teach Nowadays’ .

full program

The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts, Ashkal Alwan, would like to announce:
Home Works V: A Forum on Cultural Practices
April 22nd - May 1st, 2010
Beirut, Lebanon

Militarism - the army’s sway over politics and/or its governance in a given country - occupies an eminent position in many regimes in the Middle East. The case of Syria, Turkey or Israel can illustrate how the military institution has a central and decisive involvement in politics. These three regimes are more or less militarized; their political realities are diversely affected by the intervention of the army. In Israel for instance, the political elite is mainly formed of men from a military background, as is made clear by the predominance of ex-generals’ succession to the country’s governmental posts. In Turkey, the army has a strong hand in political activity and defends the secular regime; as such, it is not farfetched that it would intervene to topple an elected government, should it sense that there is a transgression of the foundations of the Republic of Ataturk. As for Syria, the army has total control over the government, preventing any form of power sharing. Ashkal Alwan intends to invite thinkers and artists to research and reflect on militarism and to present works that engage with this issue, based on the aforementioned examples without being limited to those specific countries. http://www.ashkalalwan.org

Decolonizing Architecture will present:
Oush Grab (the crows nest): Revolving Door Occupation

Since it’s evacuation by the occupation forces in 2006 the hilltop of oush grab was at the centre of a battlefield of many actors. Located at the edge of Beit Sahour (Bethlehem) and the desert it had been a fortress used by all colonial regimes that governed Palestine in the past century. In the recent intifadah tanks within this fortress have destroyed most Palestinian homes around it. The base Is also a point of natural singularity within the landscape as the last grassroots for thousands of migrating birds that descend on the hill twice a year- in fall and spring. Before evacuating it, Israeli soldiers have transformed the hill into a volcano like topography, where now the remnants of the military buildings stand like in a ghost town. Israeli settler groups now seek to establish a new settlement within these building. Palestinian and international activists confront them in what has become one of the most intense flash points with the Palestine frontier. Could architecture and spatial practices be used in the battle for this hilltop? 

In 2010, the Global Art Forum returns as the Middle East’s leading platform for cultural debate and discussion, focusing on key issues that bring together the arts scenes of the region with the rest of the world.

Under the banner ‘Crucial Moments’, the 2010 Forum explores evolving aspects of contemporary culture including education, mapping modernism, art writing, and patronage. Bringing experts from the art world together with those from the region, speakers will discuss both practical outcomes as well as more theoretical concerns.

Global Art Forum. Madinat Beach
Panel: Palestine Syndrome, 16.00 – 17.00, 18 March 2010
Chair: Vasif Kortun, Director, Platform Garanti, Istanbul
Jack Persekian, Director, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah and Director, Al-Ma’mal Foundation
for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem
Alessandro Petti, Architect, Bethlehem
Sandi Hilal, Architect, Bethlehem
Reem Fadda, Associate Curator for Middle Eastern Art, Guggenheim, Abu Dhabi Project, Ithaca

entire program here

At “refuge” in Istanbul critical projects and positions by architects, urbanists, artists and activists. Exhibitions curated by Philipp Misselwitz and Can Altay in cooperation with the 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam IABR
“Open City: Designing Coexistence”.
DEPO/ Tütün Deposu
ziyaret saatleri / visiting hours:
Salı - Pazar / Tuesday - Sunday 11.00 - 19.00
(Pazartesileri kapalı / closed on Mondays)
Giriş Ücretsizdir / Free Entry
Rehberli Turlar / Guided Tours:
Cumartesi / Saturday 13.00 – 18.00
Daha fazla bilgi için / For further information:
www.depoistanbul.net
depo@depoistanbul.net
+90 212 292 39 56

In 2004, the Department of English and Comparative Studies inaugurated an annual Edward Said Memorial Lecture to honour a prominent literary scholar and a renowned public intellectual who died in 2003.
Said understood criticism to be a ‘humanistic activity’ encompassing ‘erudition and sympathy’, sensitivity to ‘inner tensions’, and an openness to imponderables and mysteries. His own finely-tuned responsiveness to the singularity of any piece of writing with which he engaged, is evident in his innovative and surprising interpretations of both canonical and marginalised literature.
These same writings also register the obligation felt by Said to make visible the actual affiliations that exist between ‘the world of ideas and scholarship on the one hand, and the world of brute politics, corporate and state power, and military force on the other.’
The University of Warwick had twice hosted visits from Edward Said. In 1994 the Department of English together with the Department of Philosophy held an International Conference on his work and the work this has generated. Papers presented at this conference were later published as Cultural Readings of Imperialism: Edward Said and the Gravity of History, ed. Keith Ansell Pearson, Benita Parry and Judith Squires (1997). In 2001 Said received an Honorary Degree. On both occasions his crowded lectures revealed his singular ability to bring politics to scholarship and scholarship to politics.

The 6th Annual Edward Said Memorial Lecture
Tuesday 2nd March 2010 at 6pm, University of Warwick, Ramphal Building, Room R0.21 
“Spatial Politics in Israel and Palestine”
Professor Eyal Weizman, Director of the Centre for Research in Architecture, Goldsmiths College, London.
Author of Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation (2007)
Further enquiries to: N.Lazarus@warwick.ac.uk

Bethlehem-based architectural practice Decolonizing Architecture members Sandi Hilal, Alessandro Petti and Eyal Weizman present some of the ideas that inform their work in conversation with researcher Lorenzo Pezzani, Abdoumaliq Simone, urbanist and Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths College and film curator Rasha Salti.
This event runs concurrently with the ‘Decolonizing Architecture’ film season at The Delfina Foundation curated by Rasha Salti.
Supported by The Delfina Foundation

Tate Modern  Starr Auditorium
£12 (£10 concessions), booking recommended
For tickets, call 020 7887 8888

The Human Rights Project (HRP) enables students to learn about, and engage in, the contemporary human rights movement. The Project focuses on the philosophical foundations and political mechanisms of human rights and maintains a special interest in freedom of expression, the public sphere, and media. Since 2001 HRP has supported dozens of student internships at human rights and humanitarian organizations, governmental and international agencies, local community groups, hospitals and clinics, and research centers from Peshawar to Albany. HRP is directed by Thomas Keenan  

http://hrp.bard.edu/project/programs/

Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art is proud to present the fifth season of the Urban Field Speakers Series. Toronto, Ontario

Alessandro Petti

Sara Graham, moderator
March 11, 2010 at 7:30 PM


The artist, architect and professor at Bard / Al-Quds University speaks about Decolonzing Architecture, a collaborative research project that explores the problems and potentiality associated with the reuse of Israeli colonial architecture after Israeli occupation and settlers’ evacuations. Moderated by visual artist Sara Graham.

more info

Nahr el Bared Reconstruction for Civil Action and Studies (NBRC) would like to recruit one Urban Designer and two Architects to work on the production of the masterplan in the adjacent area.
NBRC is located in Tripoli/Nahr el Bared.

Please circulate the TOR for these positions:
1 Urban designer (2-5 years experience)
1 Architect (min 1 year experience)
1 Architect (3-5 years experience)

NBRC is a local Nahr el bared grassroot initiative that worked on the production of the masterplan of the nahr el bared camp and is currently working on a masterplan for the Nahr el bared Camp adjacent Areas. It focuses on advocating for the reconstruction of the destroyed camp and preparation of various studies to facilitate that process.
It was initiated in late June 2007.

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Top Ten by Tirdad Zolghadr

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.

http://artforum.com/inprint/issue=201001&id=24455

The Delfina Foundation and Decolonizing.ps are collaborating on a residency in Bethlehem, at the Decolonizing Architecture studio. This residency is an opportunity for practitioners to gain intensive experience in practice lead research and spatial activism, within the conceptual frame of the studio, in one the world’s most charged conflict areas.

Lorenzo Pezzani is the first practitioner to take part in this pilot project. A PhD candidate at Goldsmiths University’s Centre for Research Architecture, Lorenzo Pezzani’s practice-based research looks at how the afterlife of various buildings, monuments, migrant bodies and images can enhance, through profanation, the production of a new postcolonial ecology.

The Delfina Foundation facilitates artistic exchanges and dialogue between the UK and the Middle East & North Africa via a programme of artistic residencies and related public events. Its public programme (including talks & exhibitions) provides platforms for artists to explore common areas of practice, showcase their work and look at the link between the arts and civic society.

More information about The Delfina Foundation.

The Book of Return assembled by Alessandra Gola (decolonizing.ps) for Zochorot it is simultaneously an archive of aural and drawn testimonies about the Palestinian towns and villages destroyed in 1948, and a collection of ideas for an effective return of Palestinian refugees. More importantly it is a tool around which discussions about different forms of returns can take place. The aim is to add to the legalistic approach to the right of return a projective one which proposes a series of images, aiming to open the imagination towards different forms in which an actual return could take place. We believe that a combination of a legal and an architectural approach are necessary in order to open the political imagination.

The book of Returns is a nomadic device, moving through the different sites and locations where refugees are dispursed, mirroring their political extraterritoriality. In each context it is performing another function. Including maps, drawings, photographs, texts, analysis and actual projects is a fundamental tool to kick start discussions, raise questions, and work around profound fears. Size, material and color are the structural parts for the case. The size plays the role in inviting stake holders to gather around this monumental book. The information collected within the book are intentionaly raw, direct and somehow undetermined, in order to be used as trigers for discussions.