EAPGROUP

Decolonizing Architecture

Decolonizing Architecture/Art Residency (DAAR) is a Bethlehem-based studio led by Alessandro Petti, Sandi Hilal and Eyal Weizmann which offers a critical examination of the role played by architecture in the occupation of the Palestinian territories.



Their work imagines the "decolonisation" of Palestine through new uses for oppressive Israeli infrastructure. The evacuated Israeli military fortress of Oush Grab (Crow's Nest in Arabic) becomes a public park and a haven for starlings, storks and birds of prey that use the site to rest while migrating -- birds recognise no national boundaries.



The centrepiece of their exhibition is a life-sized section through the abandoned Palestinian parliament in a suburb of Jerusalem -- a parliament that has never been used.

Construction started during the 1996 Oslo Accord when peace seemed possible and was halted in 2003. The Green Line runs through the parliament. DAAR have taken that literal line on a map, and scaled it up to a 1.5 metre section through the Parliament that will be built in the gallery. It will act as a forum for debate. Does nationhood depend on borders and the ownership of land, or can it come to mean something more fluid, multi-faceted and communal they suggest?

DAAR projects have been shown at the Venice and Istanbul Biennales, Tate in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, among many others.  DAAR was awarded the Prince Claus Prize for Architecture in 2010.

Decolonizing Architecture/Art Residency
, Common Assembly, 
28 January – 15 April
 2011, Weekday Cross, Nottingham NG1 2GB 0115 948 9750

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