Applying the analytical skills of architecture and planning as a means to expose the present spatial reality and the mechanisms of spatial domination that construct and maintain it. These include the ability to carry out spatial research in itself – interrogating maps, aerial photographs, planning documents and legal documents, and the undertaking of empirical surveys – and the means to synthesise and communicate its findings in a vivid and graphically compelling manner to a wider audience.
By Ben White This article was originally published on Al Jazeera English. It is posted on arenaofspeculation.org with kind permission from the author. From the refugees in 1949 looking over the Lebanese border at the land from which they were expelled, to the students in the Gaza banned by the Israeli Supreme Court from studying […]
By Ahmad Barclay and Dena Qaddumi This article was originally posted on opendemocracy.net as part of the Cities in Conflict Series. The establishment of the village Bab Al-Shams (“gate of the sun”) on 11 January 2013 represented a new evolution in the unfolding patterns of spatial resistance in Palestine. Conversely, the response of the Israeli […]
By Isis Nusair This article is a co-publication, also appearing on Jadaliyya alongside arenaofspeculation.org. I last visited Al-Khalil (Hebron) with my family when I was a child in the mid 1970s. I only have vague recollections of that visit, except for the place where Ibrahim was to sacrifice his son. For some reason, and maybe […]
by Suzanne Harris-Brandts Amidst a series of dramatic events in recent weeks, the Palestinian strife of living under Israeli occupation for close to half a century has once again entered global media attention. Contributing to the headlines were two new Israeli announcements of Jewish-only settlement construction in the peripheries of East Jerusalem. The first- obfuscated […]
by Nura Alkhalili This photo essay was originally published in the Berkeley Planning Journal. It is republished on arenaofspeculation.org with kind permission from the author. The piece, based on a study between May and November 2011, traces the evolution of a wall located between a newly established “Public Fitness Park” in Ramallah city and the […]
By Ryvka Barnard This article was originally posted on Jadaliyya, and is re-posted on arenaofspeculation.org with permission from the author. Over one weekend, two seemingly incongruous sets of images dominated the news from Palestine: one set displayed local tourism operators and Palestinian Authority (PA) officials in Bethlehem celebrating the designation of the Nativity Church as […]
Below is an introduction to a new project related to al-3awda. It can also be found in Arabic. arenaofspeculation.org has helped to establish this project and will post some of its features from time to time. Today we launch #3awda. A collective project seeking to harness social media and focus a new creative energy towards […]
By Aimee Shalan This article, a reflection on the 2009 film “Videomappings: Aida, Palestine” by Till Roeskens, was originally published on Jadaliyya. It is featured on arenaofspeculation.org with kind permission from the author. The struggle over Palestine—a struggle in which ideas, representations, rhetoric, and images are all fiercely contested—has been so overexposed in mainstream media […]
By Idit Elia Nathan ‘Just as none of us is outside or beyond geography, none of us is completely free from the struggle over geography. That struggle is complex and interesting because it is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings.’ -Edward Said ‘Perception Requires Involvement’ […]
Words and images by Diego Segatto In this original article for arenaofspeculation.org, Diego Segatto shares his experiences of reading the conflict through the built and natural landscapes of Israel-Palestine. His photographs are generously shared here on a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license. Questo articolo è pubblicato anche in italiano. Il testo italiano segue l’inglese. Surveillance […]
The following is an interview with Léopold Lambert (@TheFunambulist_), author of ‘Weaponized Architecture: The Impossibility of Innocence’ (published by dpr-barcelona), a new publication that offers an analysis of Israel’s architecture of colonization in the context of global trends in architecture and urbanism, and uses architectural design as a tool to highlight and subvert the spatial […]
Throughout this month the Mosaic Rooms in London plays host to the exhibition “From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction & State Formation 1947-50”. The timing of the exhibition, curated by visual theorist Ariella Azoulay, coincides with the release of an English translation of her accompanying book, and is complemented by a series […]