The Making of a Ruin

WE WERE BUILDING SAND CASTLES_BUT THE WIND BLEW THEM AWAY_FINALFINAL3.PSD, a public art commission by the artist collective METASITU, welcomed visitors to post-apocalyptic ruin folly from 6 November 2019 to 25 January 2020

In this public art commission presented by Alserkal Arts Foundation, the artist collective METASITU transformed the building previously known as Nadi Al Quoz into a ruin folly, a popular architectural typology in the 18th and 19th century Western garden tradition. By deliberately creating a ruin in 21st century Dubai, METASITU reflected on the extractive city-building processes, and contextualises them within different human and geological timelines.

The commission by urban collective METASITU suggested architecture as a process, rather than a finished object. Through it, the collective explored the cycles of ruinification, ecological footprint, returns, and alternative urban models.

METASITU, an artist collective (and former residents of Alserkal Residency) transformed Warehouse 90, previously known as Nadi Al Quoz, into a ruin folly, a popular architectural typology in the 18th and 19th century Western garden tradition.

The commission by urban collective METASITU suggested architecture as a process, rather than a finished object. Through it, the collective explored the cycles of ruinification, ecological footprint, returns, and alternative urban models.

METASITU, an artist collective (and former residents of Alserkal Residency) transformed Warehouse 90, previously known as Nadi Al Quoz, into a ruin folly, a popular architectural typology in the 18th and 19th century Western garden tradition.

Patrons commissioned ‘deliberate ruins’ and ‘exotic pavilions’ – follies – for their estates. These structures of ‘unusable architecture’ came to establish spatial counter-narratives to the production-line logic of the, then-emerging, industrialisation era.

By deliberately creating a ruin in 21st century Dubai, METASITU reflects on the extractive city-building processes, as well as contextualises them within different human and geological timelines.

In an attempt to return the building’s materials to their ‘original state’, different parts were repurposed and reused. In future, the space will be further deconstructed into a landscaped environment for the public.

METASITU is a research-based and socially-driven practice, pendulating between Kiev and Athens. They usurp artistic roles (artists, curators, coordinators), using art as a strategy: a platform to support their research, a medium to reach different actors, and a tool to establish bridges across disciplines. This allows them to abuse urbanism discourses, develop new tools to empower individuals in the way they relate to the territory, and challenge spatial power hegemonies. Founded in 2014 by Liva Dudareva and Eduardo Cassina, METASITU was born with the goal of enabling cognitive emancipations around the (built) environment, by establishing new formats of knowledge exchange for understanding the urban condition today, for an exciting tomorrow. At METASITU they strive to open up new discursive lines, and demystify prevalent spatial narratives, by curating urbanism festivals, delivering workshops, producing videos, coordinating residencies, developing public programs, tutoring students, self-publishing, and transgressing real estate commodities. For the past three years they have been researching alternatives to traditional master planning techniques for post-industrial shrinking cities. They believe in creating a horizontal framework for knowledge exchange in order to subsume degrowth in their masterplans.