[H] [1] [2] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

* * Contact

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Big Bus Tour _2008

In Dubai tourists are offered the opportunity
to consume urban space. Is the tourist
directed and trapped by this space? The
city-states infrastructure is separated into
architectural zones, producing specific
spatial and visual experiences for particular
social groups. Many locations are made
visible and accessible by highways and roads.
The tour bus allows visitors to visually access
the city; the tour guide's verbal commentary
directs the 'gaze' towards destinations chosen
as sites to be consumed.

Intervening and asking questions offers
opportunities to explore who are the producers
and consumers of social spaces. For example
what consensual and conflicting territorial
practices exist between migrant construction
workers and tourists? How could creative
intervention recompose spatial connections
and exchanges between these social groups?
Could disrupting and recomposing existing
spatial and social narratives, myths and scripts
in this city activate a new chain of events?

All parties involved can become co-producers
who affect each other and contribute to the
script. The shared experience of the 'event'
and recorded images (or archive) could
challenge what constitutes segregation and
redistribute knowledge. Revealing hidden maps
draws the attention of tourists and viewing
publics, to complex societal disconnections
between tourist's and construction workers
in this city.

This site-specific work was made as part of
a research project with architects Marina Loeb,
Keyvan Gharaee Nezhad and the Architecture
Association, London. A short film documenting
the event was screened as part Labour Traffic
curated by Yazid Anani and Alessandro Petti
and at Multichannel curated by Peter Bonnell
and Helen Sloan at ArtSway in 2008.