An evening at the Concrete Tent with DAAR

DAAR - Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti - had presented the Concrete Tent in Al Madam Ghost Town for the second edition of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial. It was activated in November as a space for collective mourning and solidarity with Palestine.

Sandi and Alessandro return to the UAE for a short period of residency with the Alserkal Arts Foundation, which has previously hosted the Tree School with DAAR.

On Saturday February 10, Sharjah Architecture Triennial had extended a special invitation for us to gather with the artists for an on-site activation where names of victims under the age of 18 from the on-going genocide on Gaza will be recited. Participants are invited to share their experiences, emotions and stories revolving around mourning and the realities of war.

'Originally built in Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem Palestine in 2015, the Concrete Tent in Al Madam Ghost Town is a space for collective mourning and solidarity with Palestine. While the tent is the basic element for the construction of refugee camps, it is also used for gatherings during funerals and protests. It is the material manifestation of the temporary status of refugees in the camps yet also symbolizes their right to return to their homes.’

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About DAAR

The artistic practice of DAAR – Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti – is situated between architecture, art, pedagogy and politics. Over the last two decades, they have developed a series of research- projects that are both theoretically ambitious and practically engaged in the struggle for justice and equality. In their artistic research practice, art exhibitions are both sites of display and sites of action that spill over into other contexts: built architectural structures, the shaping of critical learning environments, interventions that challenge dominant collective narratives, the production of new political imaginations, the formation of civic spaces and the re-definition of concepts.