Dignified Life: outliving impossible ecologies
15.02.26
Dignified life: outliving impossible ecologies is a digital publication examining the impact of perpetual colonial realities and counterinsurgency wars in Lebanon, Palestine and the Golan.
It asks how to read the present, and how to prepare for liveable futures amid ongoing violence. How do we rebuild with more-than-human worlds when the toxins of these wars outlive us in the soil, water and air?
Through artistic and ecological practices that explore human and non-human relations resisting systemic violence, this publication features new research by Shourideh C. Molavi, Public Works Studio, Mhamad Safa and Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Aya Bseiso, Shada Safadi, Sanabel Abdel Rahman, Marwa Arsanios, Lobna Sana, Manal Zia, Munira Khayyat and Carla Aouad. Alongside drawings, a conversation on the sonic, a video work, the texts span poetic fieldnotes, speculative fiction, as well as spatial and environmental analysis and propositions.
Designed by Studio Kawakeb it will be launched on 25 September 2025 at Beirut Art Center.
This is part of the project War-Torn Ecologies – Resistant Worlds, co-curated by Odessa Warren, Reem Shadid, Angelina Radaković and Siegrun Salmanian. A collaboration with Beirut Art Center, it is funded by Art Jameel and the British Council’s Anhar Climate Forum.
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ARTIST BIO
Dr. Shourideh C. Molavi is a writer and scholar specializing in critical state theory, decolonization, migration and border studies and decolonial ecologies. She has over 20 years of academic and fieldwork experience in Palestine, and 10 years of research and work in Gaza.
Public Works Studio is a Lebanon-based action research organization that uses a multidisciplinary approach to spatial justice. It addresses, mobilizes around, and actively responds to the chronic challenges facing just cities, inclusive urban governance and equitable development in Lebanon.
Lawrence Abu Hamdan is a ‘Private Ear’. In 2023 he founded Earshot, the world's first organisation to use sound in defence of human and environmental rights. His projects that reflect on the politics of sound and listening have been presented all over the world and received multiple awards including the 2019 Turner Prize.
Mhamad Safa is an architect, sound producer and researcher based in London. His work focuses on multi-scalar spatial conditions and their sonic make-ups. He is an Associate Lecturer in Architecture and Media Studies at the Royal College of Art in London.
Shada Safadi is a visual artist from Majdal Shams in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, working across mixed media to retell local stories from her communities. A founding member of Fateh Al Mudarris Center, she received the A.M. Qattan Young Artist Award (2008).
Sanabel Abdel Rahman is a writer and a researcher with a PhD in Arabic Studies focused on magical realism in Palestinian literature. Her work explores themes of postcolonial haunting, ecological surrealism, and magical-realist potentialities.
Lobna Sana is a Bedouin architect and artist from the Naqab, southern Palestine.
Manal Zia is an urbanist and architect focused on post-conflict reconstruction, displacement, and spatial justice. A recent MIT graduate, her work bridges design and development through a liberation praxis. She is the founder of Zariya, a nonprofit supporting Muslim immigrant and refugee women in the U.S.
Public Works Studio is a Lebanon-based action research organization that uses a multidisciplinary approach to spatial justice. It addresses, mobilizes around, and actively responds to the chronic challenges facing just cities, inclusive urban governance and equitable development in Lebanon.
Lawrence Abu Hamdan is a ‘Private Ear’. In 2023 he founded Earshot, the world's first organisation to use sound in defence of human and environmental rights. His projects that reflect on the politics of sound and listening have been presented all over the world and received multiple awards including the 2019 Turner Prize.
Mhamad Safa is an architect, sound producer and researcher based in London. His work focuses on multi-scalar spatial conditions and their sonic make-ups. He is an Associate Lecturer in Architecture and Media Studies at the Royal College of Art in London.
Shada Safadi is a visual artist from Majdal Shams in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, working across mixed media to retell local stories from her communities. A founding member of Fateh Al Mudarris Center, she received the A.M. Qattan Young Artist Award (2008).
Sanabel Abdel Rahman is a writer and a researcher with a PhD in Arabic Studies focused on magical realism in Palestinian literature. Her work explores themes of postcolonial haunting, ecological surrealism, and magical-realist potentialities.
Lobna Sana is a Bedouin architect and artist from the Naqab, southern Palestine.
Manal Zia is an urbanist and architect focused on post-conflict reconstruction, displacement, and spatial justice. A recent MIT graduate, her work bridges design and development through a liberation praxis. She is the founder of Zariya, a nonprofit supporting Muslim immigrant and refugee women in the U.S.
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