LIVING BORDERS

BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA IN DIALOGUE WITH PALESTINE

OCTOBER 5-28 2021

ONLINE

Kuma International is very happy to announce its third annual program dedicated to architecture which will be held online every Tuesday and Thursday through October 5-28 2021 at 19:00 (CEST).

Entitled “Living Borders. Bosnia & Herzegovina in dialogue with Palestine”, this year’s Architecture Month will bring together eight architects and researchers whose practices around Bosnia and Herzegovina and Palestine examine notions of exile, migration, and the questions of crossing and overcoming borders to further the interdisciplinary debate that critically interrogates the border-migration nexus in architectural terms.

Our guest speakers will be Haris Piplas, Dr. (ETH Zurich), Nadia Habash, M.Arch. (Birzeit University), Senada Demirovic Habibija, Dr. (IDEAA Urban House Mostar), Anwar Jaber, Dr. (University of Cambridge/ University of Waterloo), Sabina Tanovic, Dr. (TU of Delft), Abed Alrahman Kittaneh, Dr. and Alessandra Gola, Dr. Candidate (Yallah Project), Ajna Babahmetovic, M.Arch. (TU Gratz)and Suzanne Harris-Brandts, Dr. (University of Carleton).

The program will be building upon the theme of the Summer School which was “Borders and Migrations” which had the main goal to offer unique tools to address and reflect on geopolitical boundaries and their ethnic and political divisions while advocating for a conflict-free society.

Kuma Architecture Month is envisioned as an interchange by focusing not only on local context but also to create a dialogue between the architects and scholars from Bosnia and Herzegovina and those from Palestine. Through this dialogue, we hope to share points of overlap, learn from each other’s experience but also push the architectural discourse within the post-conflict architectural practice.

Rather than analyzing urban destruction and reconstruction through the lens of what the targeted place was/is, the task is to inquire about what its transformation does to the assemblage of the city— that is, how it affects a complex set of relationships with its various other architectural, urban, natural, social and technical elements. The aim is to understand how such place transformations are enmeshed in the altering boundaries of the city’s territory, place identity, everyday spatial practices, discourses, senses of place, and the action and interaction between its residents.

PROGRAM

Week 1 – Transforming borders

Haris Piplas, Dr. (ETH Zurich)

Tuesday, October 5 at 19:00 CEST

“Re-Constructing Sarajevo – Radical Spatial Transformations in a (Geo)Politically Contested Urban Laboratory”

Nadia Habash, M.Arch. (Birzeit University)

Thursday, October 7 at 19:00 CEST

“Architecture as Resistance (Architecture in Palestine as a form of opposition against the Israeli occupation)”

Week 2 – (In)visible Borders

Senada Demirovic Habibija, Dr. (IDEAA Urban House Mostar)

Tuesday, October 12 at 19:00 CEST

“Case Study Mostar: A divided city”

Anwar Jaber, Dr. (University of Cambridge/ University of Waterloo)

Thursday, October 14 at 19:00 CEST

“Spatial Investigation: The political-national topography in Ramallah, Palestine”

Week 3 – Acting with(in) borders

Sabina Tanovic, Dr. (TU of Delft)

Tuesday, October 19 at 19:00 CEST

“Architecture and the Borderline: Preserving War Heritage in the Post-siege Sarajevo”

Abed Alrahman Kittaneh, Dr. and Alessandra Gola, Dr. Candidate (Yallah Project)

Thursday, October 21 at 19:00 CEST

“The Yalla Project (TYP) as an applied research hub on socio-spatial issues”

Week 4 – Reclaiming Borders

Ajna Babahmetovic, M.Arch. (TU Gratz)

Tuesday, October 26 at 19:00 CEST

“Houses at Home: Reading Diasporic Architecture in Bosnia & Herzegovina”

Suzanne Harris-Brandts, Dr. (University of Carleton)

Thursday, October 28 at 19:00 CEST

“The politics of landscape in the occupied West Bank”