island [861] how to disappear by dina haddadin

island [861] how to disappear

This project stems from my quest to contest the "Right to the City" - the right to make [re-make] the cities in which we live â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and how we relate through spaces in the margin; spaces in transit as if one disappears into nothingness alongside. The scope is to examine, in the form of multidisciplinary artistic interventions, the marginalising discourses of urban informal settlements, sociogeographic conceptions of place, socio-spatial construct; and analysing structures and systems of power behind it to present a critique of both globalized neoliberalism and neocolonialism planning, the architecture it brings and the 'invisible tangible' boundaries it create. While a global urban phenomena, the nuance is more evident in a city like Amman which is continuously subject to contradicting tensions/forces of planning, migration, socio-economic conditions and demands, geo-politics to list a few.

Nothingness photography 2013

Stair case photograph 70 cm x 50 cm 2013

“Why do you think the government demolished the neighborhood?” Asked Alaa’ al Bustanji the son of a shop owner. “What does the government want to build here? Who will live in these buildings?” His father adds: “ the government didn’t care about us when we were struggling with nature and they don’t care now this feeling of being second class citizens and neglected by the government makes me in an informal state of mind I do not know what to expect.. for me this is a second NAKBAH.. they call it corridor Abdoun I call it NAKBAH Abdoun” ( Abu Alaa’ al Bustanji)

Exploded Terrains 2013

Abdoun: the inland island in Amman where the richest of the rich live sitting on the line that separates East from West Amman . In Abdoun, a parallel world, most Ammanis donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get to experience where the refined Jordanian community lives. Just few hundred meters away is a neighborhood everyone pretends doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exists. This forgotten little corner is 'Hay Al Qaysieh', or the 'neighborhood of Qaysieh', sitting in the valley below. The anarchic place, a 'nothing place', an unwanted burden on the local authorities? Hay Al Qaysieh was first settled in the 1950, as an invasion of agricultural land on the outskirts of Amman by a group of Palestinian refugee, mainly from the Qaysi and Bustanji tribe. The surrounded areas (Abdoun now) were undeveloped with no services. Temporary structures where built and then more permanent ones with concrete and concrete blocks were used, but there was no clear land divisions. In 1980 the area was recognized by the municipality and was zoned ( type D) 250sq.m plots.

View towards the valleys showing Hay Al Qaysieh on the left courtesy of Manifesto 2013

Images of Corridor Abdoun Development courtesy of GAM 2007

In 2005 GAM announced that the main road that cuts through Hai Al Qaysi is part of Amman growth plan, where they vision it as an urban corridor with central parkway; which will include public transportation line and high ri ise development l t area.

Images of Corridor Abdoun Development courtesy of GAM 2007

Dust cloud photograph 70 cm x 50 cm 2013

Inhabitants were evacuated to make room for the future private investments. In 2007 GAM announced the acquisition of 117 houses which are occupied by 240 of the poorest families in Amman and ordered an immediate evacuation ( Al-Gahd, 2007, march 19). Although it is remarkable that these two areas had been the subject of upgrading program by the housing and urban development (HUDC) twice during the 1990s and the 2000s. After few years dragging those simple people in the legal system, the Bedaya court ruled to change the compensation sum from 80 JDs/m2 to 750 JDs/ m2. The poorest of these families who built their â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;sheltersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; informally will end up with no compensation at all.

Fragments- Guilty Landscapes pencil on paper, 2013

Demolished part of the neighbourhood in grey

The 7 households left

The proposed street development, vs the affected neighborhood area in darker shade

The green strip of Wadi Abdoun and the Qaysieh neighborhood

A rendered image showing the future for the green strip development, which reminds us of the utopian vision of (The Radiant City)1935 of Le Corbusier

29-03- 200 07 GAM announ nced the acquisition of 117 houses whi ich are occupied by 240 of the poorest fa amilies

12-09-2008 8 Demolishio on started

06-12-2009 9 Most of th he houses were demolished and the rest awaiting a the demolishion

01-02-2010 0

22-10-2012 2 Most of th he houses were demolished except 17 houses occupied by 30 families

2013 The curren nt situation

In 2008, all the houses where demolished except 17 houses occupied by 30 families, who refused to evacuate and were in constant battle with GAM. In 2012 the rest of the houses where demolished with little compensation or relocation plan, most of the displaced residences left to the peripheral areas of the city, they scattered between Baqaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;a, Sahab, Rusifah ( Al Gad, 2012, October 7) However that was not the end of the demolition; in 6th of April 2013 GAM releases eviction notices for another 17 families in the area as those families houses are on the way of the planned road structure for the Central Park Way. That was when I first heard of the issue where I met the residents left in the neighborhood. They are currently in the process of getting their compensation and moving out.

861

‘The Marginal’ were integrated in the society, on terms that often caused them to be economically exploited, politically repressed, socially stigmatized and culturally excluded. Labeled as 'anarchic growth, 'nothingness', 'unwanted responsibility' as GAM representatives explains. In this case it is the state that constructs places like Hai Al Qaysieh as ‘Dysfunctional’, through its categories of ‘ planned/unplanned’ formal/informal and so on.

Diagram made of the four official corners of a planned piece of land. In the case of Hay Al Qaysi it is clearly a forgotten area planned as emptiness

These settlements are labeled as problems in the city of Amman by authorities, in which these places are implicitly separated from the idea of the city: they are seen as 'elsewhere' and 'the other'. Based on the enduring influence of discourses of modernity, which have tended to conceptualize cities in binary terms such as ‘modern/traditional’ and urban/rural’..ect ‘The Marginal’ were integrated in the society, on terms that often caused them to be economically exploited, politically repressed, socially stigmatized and culturally excluded. Labeled as 'anarchic growth, 'nothingness', 'unwanted responsibility' as GAM representatives explains. In this case it is the state that constructs places like Hai Al Qaysieh as ‘Dysfunctional’, through its categories of ‘ planned/unplanned’ formal/informal and so on.

Thus links are made between the perceived physical order of these places, and their disorderly social character. Where even like an area of Hay al Qaysieh which is located in the heart of the city, juxtaposed with orderly, regulated formal areas, the official frameworks find it difficult to account for things and places which are not easily measurable in terms of economic productivity. The marginalization of these places are derived from a view of ‘these places as non officially economically productive, and therefore irrelevant in terms of the local, not to mention global economy’.

Diagram made of thee four official a corners off a planned piece e of land, In the case a of Hay Al Qaysi it si s clearly a forgotten g area.

Limitless towers construction dig courtesy of Mais El Razem 2009

100 m away from the Hay Al Qaysieh, at the intersection between Wadi Abdoun (Abdoun Valley) and the Ras El Ain (the valley connecting to downtown) is an abandoned construction dig for a proposed high-rise building known as 'Sanaya Amman, Limitlessâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;; a US$300 million residential 200metre-plus twin towers in Jordan which was supposed to be the tallest tower in the city of Amman. A project that would shape the future development of the valley where what's left of the neighborhood stands. Yet like many of the huge project in the city, construction was seized in 2009 leaving the mountain with a scar of a 40 meter deep abyss. Nearly 225,000 cubic meters of earth has been excavated creating a hole 124 meters long and 74metres wide, plunging more than 40-metres below street level ,where 1,800 cubic meters of earth had been moved each day during the 3-months construction period.

A photo from the inauguration ceremony courtesy of Sanaya development 2008

Project marketing image in a local newspaper courtesy of Ahmad Humeid 2009

Construction dig imagined topography survey

Limitless towers location map

Sanaya Amman unveiled in February under the name of Limitless Towers – will be Jordan's tallest buildings

Sanaya Amman, Limitless’residential twin towers in Jordan, broke ground in july

2008

2010

2012 “Sanaya Amman will be completed in three years from 2008”

Nearly 225,000 cubic metres of earth has been excavated.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Work on Sanaya Amman has been postponed as we continue to review our projects and prioritise our investments to reflect current market conditionsâ&#x20AC;?

2009

2010

2013

2014

Limitless construction 2008-2014

Nearly 225,000 cubic metres of earth has been excavated to make way for Sanaya Amman, Limitless' $300 million (Dh1.1 billion), 200-metre-plus twin tower residential project, which broke ground in July 2008. Excavation at the site has created a hole 124 metres long and 74-metres wide, plunging more than 40-metres below street level at its deepest. The work is almost 70 per cent complete, with 1,800 cubic metres of earth being moved each day.

225,000 cubic metres

40 m meters 40 meters t s

74 meters

124 meters

Farewell Hay Al Qaysi photograph 70 cm x 50 cm 2013

These dual worlds; juxtaposed and yet apart; an island in the city that no one recognize holding shadows of what were once homes for the poor, transformed into a surreal limbo, a space of division. The other world is in the other exclusive island; the fictional "island" that will solve the society, the dream of a 'utopian' world, the project that will connect the east with the west Amman as marketed but ironically will grow the separation deeper; with such system that is creating an economic cleansing of 'the central area' of Amman, to allow for the high-income residential and commercial gentrification projects, celebrated with such neoliberal projects of power and money ... and the inevitable displacement of lower-income households labeled as cheap labor from the center to the peripheries of the city. The Hay Al Qaysieh community knocked on every existing door. They went to court, protested, wrote to every politician, newspaper and tv station, created blogs, YouTube videos... All they got, is a complete blind eye and a mechanical answer asking them to apply (no promises, or good intentions) to the governmental housing projects.

Are we able to influence the course of destruction and displacement? How can one resist, how can one rebel, or at least agitate? so that marginalized places like such neighborhood wouldn't go forgotten. Who has the power in the city, who builds its superstructures, who builds its utopian monument, and who has the power to take them down? Can architecture be an instrument for social transformation? or is it completely incapable of playing that role. since it has been employed as a tool for development of capitalism. Should we declare the death of architecture? as 'Tafuri' did in his ' negative dialectic', should i drop the naive concept that 'architecture has the power to change the world'? Should we reject planning, the formalization of the present unjust social divisions ? Sould we reject its cities?

Parade II video projection still 2013

The project is a critic for both 'architecture' and its codifying of bourgeois model of ownership and society, and a critic of our 'city urbanism and planning' which can be purely a formalization of present unjust social divisions. The case of Hay Al Qaysieh island for me is to reject such systems, its cities and the architecture it bringsâ&#x20AC;Ś Cities are key representation sites for spatialization of 'power projects' (whether political, religious, or economic), captured in its superstructures, and on the other end captured in its segregated groups. The parts of the city beyond the â&#x20AC;&#x153;papersâ&#x20AC;? and official documents, beyond descriptions and representations, the islands that are silenced and marginalized. These parts of the city which are being replaced; as the case of Hay al Qaysieh, with high-income residential and commercial projects to accommodate the expanding elite classes, at the cost of the inevitable displacement of these lower-income patches.

edit out Laser print, ink, pencil, thread, bleach 25 cm x 16 cm 2013

Fragments - Guilty Landscapes pencil on paper 20 cm x 14 cm 2013

made in Damascus photograph 70 cm x 50 cm 2013

‘I will take it out of the wall with me’ photograph 70 cm x 50 cm 2013

Narrative Video still 2013

Architecture of the Ephemeral video still 2013

Power/Grid bleached silver print on paper 30cm x 21 cm 2013

Such issues should be brought to light, especially with the state's initiatives; creating and expanding low income housing projects on the outer peripheries of Amman; in Jizza, Sahab, Marka, and Abu Alanda, it is clear that it will eventually culminate in the relocation of larger segments of poorer city residents to the east of Amman, and Hay Al Qaysieh is only one of many. Such projects; both the high-end projects and the low-income housing, will lead to a fragmented and socially segregated urbanity. The proposed 'Abdoun Corridor' and its 300 million dollar baby the 'Limitless towers' will create protected and controlled patches within the city, which will also lead to privatization of what's left of the public space creating new definitions of the public/private through the concept of exclusion/ inclusion. Architecture has always been the tool for the colonial project of imperialism in the nineteenth century, to express their power. Today in the age of globalized neoliberalism and neocolonialism, architectural demonstration’s of power have become common again. With concepts of modernity justifying 'destruction' with 'progression', or as ‘the price of progress’. Island 861 - how to disappear; is a fictional un-built island, it never was, no one knows nothing about, a sum of imagined fragments... and my aim is to build on that perception and recreate the 'Island 861'. The destruction that occurred, the demolition and the fragmentation of the neighborhood has an accuracy that reminds us again of architecture. A loop starting and ending with architecture, an Island Un-built is the imagined scenario of my escape to try and understand the game of cities and power and create a space of resistance.

My aim is to agitation politically (to challenge the urban politics), physical (to shake the physical norm), and emotional (to be distressed through an imagined scenario), disturb the order of things in the interests of creating a window of change. Hay Al Qaysieh is a place in transition, money was talking loud maybe art can scream louder.

4-story building photograph 70 cm x 50 cm 2013

The project methodology is the opposite of what projects like 'Corridoor Abdoun' started , this utopian look at the city from above, conceived by the top-down planning system, the toy city, designing the mega and ignoring the micro; the existing fragile fabric . My project involves bottom-up explorations, intensive mapping of the area, conducted thorough research, surveys, interacting, reacting and analyzing. The work will start with mapping different space/place layers of Hay Al Qaysieh; The first layer is the 'First-space' which is how the space is perceived as a physical space, compartmentalization of the current fleeting physical, the growing emptiness in opposition to the physicality of spaces that used to exist. The dislocated places in relation to their new context. The second layer is the 'Second-space' which is a conceptualization of the First-space, through collecting the physical and nonphysical narratives of the existing and the nonexisting, by reading the ephemeral spaces, walls and the windows; interiors of the rooms, shops ... Finally, an intensive mapping of the concept of the 'Thirdspace' which is the imagined place constructed and reconstructed by the residents of the city and the neighborhood, the Spaces of representation or the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;lived space'/'unlived spaces'. Where in this 'space' several concepts are found within Hay Al Qaysieh; The space of Otherness. Which relates to how people talk about, refer to, or imagine the places in reference to the space of oneness; along with the potential effects of the discourses on the spatial, social, cultural, and political construction of places. Presenting how Hai Al Qaysi is perceived by the city, the views of local government officials and residents from other areas which are contrasted with those of Hai Al Qaisi residents. To explore how different perspectives interact to discursively construct this neighborhood.

Locals in the neighborhood see themselves as in the ' Another world' yet it's an ordinary one, where in a casual conversation a resident from the neighborhood remarked to me that Hay Al Qaysieh is an ‘another world’ different from its surrounding and the rest of the city. This seems to aptly express their social isolation within the city, as places which the ‘other’, perceives as not belonging to Amman. Archiving the state of the Informal state of mind and Social Isolation, the idea of social insecurity as the result of change over time and transient decisions presented in the process of changing land ownership, privatization, eviction and demolition. Where changing ownership constituted a rupture in this stability, and a corresponding change in sense of place or the placelessness that is created. In this case, the sense of alienation is based not just on transferral of legal titles, but changes in the actual possession and use of the land over time. The analysis aims to confront opposites, in a way to enable a dialogue between the visible and the invisible city, official to the unofficial city, a public to a private city, an interpretation structured as a grid to one built on individual fragments. A study of transient powers, analyzing the representation of power in our cities, through its planning or re-planning, monuments and non-monuments. Powers that are ephemeral as the discussions they draw, caused by the perseverance of the modernist utopias, which is represented in such futuristic; sometimes delusional projects, over concrete realistic fabric. The fictional "island" that should have solve the society.

Through tactical urbanism, “It’s step-by-step, piece-bypiece.”, the work will be produced with the community (engagement in and outside the Island), through urban interventions and participatory planning, re-planning the replaned. Towards a step to create awareness to this issue and empower the community to be part of the decision making in the space of resistance.

Parade photograph 70 cm x 50 cm 2013