Spatial Intervention 01: Hotel Oush Grab

Posted: 17.05.2008

Today Fabio, Bianca, Jesse and Anne have been painting in Oush Grab in order to re-de-colonize the space which had been visually occupied by israeli settlers. The zionist writings on one building and on the water tower were first nicely covered with a thick layer of white paint. Hotel Oush Grab was then set up in the first building. 3 confortable suites in a peaceful location and with a super nice view of the surrounding palestinian landscape. Soon Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Ghandi came and moved in. Che Guevara, Edward Said and Aung San Suu Kyi are expected to come after them, so no rooms will be free for settlers for a long time…

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Puzzling creative visual resistance: The buildings of Oush Grab after the re-occupation by the settlers and after the artists’ détournement

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Gaza settlements completely erased

Posted: 06.05.2008

Last night our friend Andrea Merli visited us and showed us some stunning fotos he took in Gaza, in areas where Israeli colonies used to be. Some of them, like Netzarim and Nisanit, apparently have been completely erased from the landscape. Nothing of the settlement, except some streets and the green houses (the only cultivated land) is there anymore.

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1000 Thoughts in 1 Bethlehem night – 07.05.2008, 07.30 pm

Posted: 05.05.2008

Julien Lagumier, a French social anthropologist, will be talking about French colonial architecture and social housing through the issue of utopia/ heterotopia:

The global issue of how utopian models in term of conception have turned to heterotopias, while finished and appropriated by the populations because of social changes, conflicts, and segregation. I’ll present Casablanca and Algiers as two examples of French colonial cities under the influence of the ideas of modern architecture and social progress in the 60’s despite the colonial context. We’ll see how these models still reproduce the domination on local people and try to explain how they decolonized it after independence. In the same period, in France, the government answered to a strong housing crisis by applying the modern architecture principles and building housing schemes. Forty years later, these places host the poorer people, realize a perfect segregation. I’ll present how we try to answer this issue through real projects of renewal. The links between colonial architecture and housing schemes for social housing is that Algeria and Morocco have been a place of experimentations for French engineers and architects to conceive new models which have been brought back to France.

Decolonizing Architecture at “Islands + Ghettos”

Posted: 03.05.2008

There will be a preview of Decolonizing Architecture within the project Islands + Ghettos taking place at the Heidelberger Kunstverein in Heidelberg from February to September 2008.
The stereoscopic videos by Armin Linke and Francesco Mattuzzi will be shown during the exhibition (from 06.06. to 31.08.2008) and Alessandro Petti will give a lecture about the project on the 18th of June.

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Lecture in Beirut: Home Works IV

Posted: 18.04.2008

Tomorrow, from 4:30 to 6:00 PM, Alessandro petti will hold a lecture about Decolonizing Architecture in Beirut at Ashkal Alwan – The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts. The lecture will be part of Home Works IV: A Forum on Cultural Practices, with exhibitions, lectures, panels, dance, performances, film and video screenings, and publications (April 12 to 20, 2008). See the whole program here.