The Mosaic Rooms are pleased to present a screening and panel discussion on displacement in Lebanon and the Middle East.

Artist Mohamad Hafeda will screen his short film, Sewing Borders, the film uses maps to explore experiences of displacement with residents of Beirut.A group of residents of Beirut with different experiences of displacement encounter the map of the city and that of the region. Through their sewing skills, they negotiate and narrate notions of spatial, temporal and historic borders. The exercise opens up the history of displacement in the Middle East and issues related to the representation of individuals in urban space. The video moves across maps, documents and residents’ stories, exploring the role of representational techniques (map drawing) and processes (treaties, declarations) in the making of borders, while revealing their temporal nature through the residents’ lived experience.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion on displacement and representation of borders in the Middle East. The panel will look at the different representations of borders from maps and treaties to personal and political narratives. Panelists include Laila Alodaat, Camillo Boano and Mohamad Hafeda, chaired by Michaela Crimmin, Culture + Conflict.

Laila Alodaat is a human rights lawyer specialised in international law of armed conflicts and the human rights of women. She holds a BA in Law, LLM in Human Rights, Conflict and Justice from SOAS and is a qualified trainer of international humanitarian law. Laila has worked on several conflict situations including Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yemen and Pakistan with focus on accountability for international crimes and the responsibility to protect, she has also published and contributed to several submissions to treaty bodies and international human rights monitoring mechanisms. 

Camillo Boano PhD, is an architect, urbanist. He is Professor of Urban Design and Critical Theory at The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL, and Co-director of the MSc in Building and Urban Design in Development and the UCL Urban Laboratory. In DPU Camillo is serving also as Director of Research. Camillo’s research is focused on mainstreaming political economy and critical theory-driven approaches to contemporary urban conditions, design thinking, education and urbanism. His work attempts to bridge the gap between radical philosophy, critical theory and urban design as the locus where to find a potential emancipatory project for design education and practice. Camillo’s action researches in Middle East, Latin America and South East Asia is fostering transformative thinking in the search for forms of the just city and offering a look at urban and spatial practices as political and ethical acts with the creative use of theory.

Michaela Crimmin is an independent curator; and co-director of Culture+Conflict, a not-for-profit agency working to investigate and amplify the role and value of contemporary art produced in response to international conflict. Activities include discursive events, commissions, a scholarship, and residencies. She is artistic director on a major EU-funded four-year programme of work, From Conflict to Conviviality through Creativity and Culture (4Cs), on behalf of its UK partner, the Royal College of Art; and is on the teaching staff of Central Saint Martins School of Art, UAL. www.cultureandconflict.org.uk | www.facebook.com/CultureConflict | @ConflictCulture

FREE, rsvp@mosaicrooms.org