Workshop Project 01: Collection
Posted on Feb 03, 2008 in workshop | Permalink
The first project in the workshop dealt with the idea of collection, specifically using the camera to build photographic collections of various recurrent aspects of Alexandria’s urban environment. Such collections constitute typologies of the city and reveal patterns and networks of meaning. Once isolated and singular elements gain significance through the shape that is created in their collected form, and can suggest new interpretations of the city.
View samples from the students’ collections:
Mohamed | Lamia | Abdalla | Aya | Monsour | Omar | Moushira
Mohamed Nabil, Street Signs
Mohamed noticed that many of the streets in Alexandria are named after persons whom he and most others have no knowledge of. His collection of these street signs reveals another history of the city, one largely unknown that is written in the public space of the streets.
Lamia Moghzy, Tram Graffiti
Silly names, notes to lovers, esoteric communiques… Lamia collected these snippets of vernacular writings-in-transit. Riding and waiting between destinations; these stories fill the spaces of mobility in Alexandria’s tram system.
Abdalla Safwat, Shop Signs
Abdalla was interested in the whole range of shop signs in Alexandria, from the high-style design to the more vernacular, which for him reveal the full spectrum of commerce in the city. Also, global and local issues collide in this terrain as small shops compete with multinational brands.
Aya Tarek, Numeric Notations
While working on a broader collection of graffiti writing on buildings, Aya soon focused on this system of cryptic numbers. Being indeterminate, they accommodate multiple interpretations but also offer an example of a very specific kind of language that perhaps only an initiated few can write or read—perhaps city employees or utility workers.
Mohamed Monsour, Electric Junction Boxes
Monsour made this collection of infrastructural nodes in Alexandria—the ubiquitous electric junction boxes which serves as connection points between the main power grid and branches that feed into each building in the city.
Omar Moustafa, Posted Signs
Omar’s collection consisted of these handwritten signs posted all over Alexandria. They represent a layer of personalized communications that broadcast a wide range of messages to the city’s inhabitants.
Moushira Elamrawy, Architects’ Nameplates
Many of the buildings built during the Belle Époque in Alexandria bear the mark of the architects’ and builders’ names on their facades, which Moushira collected for the workshop. Here is another layer of information written on the surface of the city that tells the city’s history and also marks changes within the architectural profession as well.
More:
Workshop Introduction
Workshop Project 02: Intervention
Workshop Project 03: Performance