OPEN CALL FOR APPLICATIONS SUMMER 2011

Delfina Foundation and decolonizing.ps (Alessandro Petti, Sandi Hilal, Eyal Weizman) are collaborating on a residency in Bethlehem at the Decolonizing Architecture studio.

The first residency took place in February-March 2010 with researcher Lorenzo Pezzani and the outcomes of the residency are being showcased as part of a series of events at Tate Modern and Delfina Foundation.
We are now inviting applications for an eight-week residency, starting July 2011, at the Decolonizing Architecture studio. The residency will offer 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.
We are seeking applications from UK-based artists and architects whose work involves critical spatial practice and who wish to carry out independent research and/or urban/territorial interventions. Applicants should have an inclination for collaborative work and the capacity of materializing ideas in a relatively short period time.
The residency will be structured around the following working methodologies: discussions, publications, exhibitions, seminar/lecture series and collaborative work. Participants will also visit project sites and various cities and villages of the West Bank. The program is set up with the support and collaboration with local universities and various local institutions and non-governmental organizations.
An artist and an architect will be selected and provided with:
• Accommodation and shared studio space in Bethlehem for the duration of the residency;
• International travel (a round-trip ticket);
• A local travel allowance;
• Support in developing a research project within the framework of Decolonizing Architecture’s ongoing activities;
• Opportunities to showcase the outcomes of the residency in London in 2011/12.
All other living costs must be met by the selected residents.

How to apply: by sending a CV and a 500 word (max) statement, detailing your interest and experience of critical spatial practice and how you would engage with the work of Decolonizing Architecture to apply@delfinafoundation. In the subject line of your email, please specify ‘Decolonizing Architecture’.
Alternatively, you can post information to us at: The Delfina Foundation, 29 Catherine Place, Victoria, London SW1E 6DY.

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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. An overview of the activities of the architects/artists/researchers in residency is given below. Moreover, the Delfina Foundation supports series of lectures and seminars organized by Decolonizing Architecture in collaboration with the architect/artist/researcher in residency.

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

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SPRING 2010: LORENZO PEZZANI

The first DF international resident at the Decolonizing Architecture studio in Bethlehem is a researcher based in London and a PhD candidate at Goldsmiths University’s Centre for Research Architecture. Lorenzo Pezzani’s research projects, moving across diverse disciplines and media, have taken various forms (video and audio pieces, installations, publications) and have been exhibited, among others, at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Glasgow and at the 4th International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam. His current work looks at how the afterlife of various “things” (buildings, monuments, migrant bodies and images) could activate, through profanation, the production of a new postcolonial ecology. He is also contributing to the ongoing collaborative project Model court, which analyses the courtroom as an apparatus that produces legal ‘truths’ by means of various protocols of spacial and aural performativity.

In the framework of his residency, Lorenzo has been involved in the research project provisionally titled “Area C”. Among other activities, DA has organized with him a series of lectures supported by The Delfina Foundation. During these meetings NGO representatives, legal experts and local stakeholders have presented specific case studies of spatial practices in “Area C”. The gathered material will be used to generate a theoretical reflection on the subject and to start imagining a range of possible interventions for the unique spatio-juridical situation in “Area C”.

Seminar I Rawabi: the Palestinian suburban dream
15 February 2010
12.30 a.m.
Al-Quds University , Rural Development Building
Abu Dis, Palestine
Seminar with Prof. Uri Davis (Al-Quds University)
“Manipulating Rawabi: Possible Implications of the JNF Donation of 3,000 to the ‘Greening of Palestine’”

Seminar II
22 February 2010
12.30 Al-Quds University , Rural Development Building
Abu Dis, Palestine
Seminar with
Nicola Perugini, anthropologist (UNESCO) “B.C. – ‘67. The elastic geography of Battir”
Andrea Parisi, GVC representative, “Improving living conditions and sanitation of herd-dependent communities in Southern West Bank”
Laura Rodrigues Pereira “legal framework in Area C”