Exhibition

  • Decolonizing Architecture
    Alessandro Petti, Sandi Hilal, and Eyal Weizman
    Artists
    REDCAT/CalArts, Los Angeles
    Dec 07, 2010 to Feb 06, 2011
  • GRANTEE
    California Institute of the Arts-REDCAT
    GRANT YEAR
    2010

View of Decolonizing Architecture, 2010, REDCAT, Los Angeles. Courtesy of Decolonizing Architecture/Art Residency. Photo: Scott Groller.

REDCAT presents the first U.S. exhibition of Decolonizing Architecture/Art Residency, a collaborative architecture/art research studio founded by Alessandro Petti, Sandi Hilal, and Eyal Weizman. Working in the highly contested territory of the West Bank, Decolonizing Architecture uses architecture to articulate the spatial complexities of decolonization to create "an arena of speculation" about the future of Palestine. For REDCAT, Decolonizing Architecture  features research material, photographic studies, architectural models, videos/films, and books on three core projects (De-Parcelization, Return to Nature, The Red Castle and the Lawless Line) to recast the largely discredited term decolonization and to consider how the transformation of financial, military, and legal infrastructures in the area can lead to what the architects have called "the construction of counter apparatuses that find new uses for the abandoned structures of domination." The exhibition , which was on view from December 7, 2010 to February 6, 2011, is accompanied by a free brochure.

Founded in 2007 by Alessandro Petti, Sandi Hilal and Eyal Weizman, Decolonizing Architecture is a research studio based in Bethlehem/Ramallah that uses multiple ways of architectural activism and architecture as a form of tactical intervention in a political process.

Alessandro Petti is a research architect based in Bethlehem. Petti is codirector of CAMP (Centre for Architecture Media and Politics) at the Bard/Al-Quds University in Abu Dis-Jerusalem. He has curated numerous projects on contemporary urban conditions such as Border Devices (2002–07); Uncertain States of Europe (with multiplicity, 2001–03); and Stateless Nation (with Sandi Hilal, 2002–07).

Sandi Hilal works as a consultant with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees in the Near East. She is a visiting professor at the International Academy of Art Palestine. In 2006, she obtained her research doctorate  in Trans-Border Policies for Daily Life at the University of Trieste.

Eyal Weizman studied architecture at the Architectural Association in London and completed his PhD at the London Consortium of Birkbeck College. He is based in London, where he is the director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Weizman works with a variety of NGOs and human right groups in Israel/Palestine. His books include Hollow Land; A Civilian Occupation; Territories 1, 2 and 3; and Yellow Rhythms. Weizman is the recipient of the James Stirling

Clara Kim is the former director and curator of the Gallery at REDCAT. Involved since its inception in 2003, Kim organized residencies, commissions, exhibitions, and publications with Atelier Bow-Wow, Haegue Yang, Walid Raad, Abraham Cruzvillegas, and Olga Koumoundouros, among others. In 2008, she cocurated All Power to the People: The History and Legacy of the Black Panther Party, with the artist Sam Durant. Kim is the recipient of grants from American Center Foundation and the Asian Cultural Council. She sits on the advisory board for LAXART and the Mayor's Design Panel for the City of Los Angeles and participated in juries for the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, California Community Foundation, Headlands Center for the Arts, and the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. Kim holds BA in art history from University of California, Berkeley, and and MA in humanities from University of Chicago. In 2010, she was cocurator of Media City Seoul. Kim is currently the senior curator of visual arts at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.