Real Estate Misdemeanours by Iyas Shahin at the University of Cambridge

Architect Iyas Shahine, one of the grantees of the second edition of the Laboratory of Arts programme, has worked together with City Incarnation on one of his new art works, in In Retreat, an exhibition organised in the Department of Architecture at the University of Cambridge, on September 23^rd, 2016. The exhibition explored the transformations and changing relationships in cities that went through forceful change. The exhibition included works and concepts formed by a group of architects and was held as a part of Spatial Articulations of Collective Identities in the Context of the Middle Eastern Cities.

Iyas Shahin noted about the work: “City Incarnation is a spatial architectural-art piece that explores the conflict between architecture and the body of Damascus by discussing some of the current and prospective architectural investments that supposedly aim to develop the city. But we, as citizens, doubt it would. City Incarnation is a multidimensional approach in which the work proposes paradoxical issues in order to change the way we see and expand our perception of the city.

“It is a metaphorical imaginary assumption. How would we imagine the city of Damascus if it had a human form? From an architectural perspective, what would this body have suffered from? What would be the real estate misdemeanour that has affected the city-body the most? What change does it have over that body and how could it be represented?

To achieve this project, “fourteen case studies of the city-body status, exploring the apparent and the hidden, as well as the imposed reality and the expectations, were made,” according to Iyas. This work was accomplished with an open collaborative technique, including 14 participants and a supervisor.