exhibitions: arthur ross architecture gallery
Columbia UniversityNew York, NY | 01/2015 - 05/2016
exhibition design under the directorship of Mark Wasiuta. I worked with a team on various stages of realizing exhibitions at the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery.
i. every building in baghdad: the rifat chadirji archives at the arab image foundation
Arthur Ross Architecture GalleryNew York, NY | 03/31/2016 - 05/14/2016
Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies of Fine Arts*
Chicago, IL | 09/15/2016 - 12/31/2016
the exhibition examines the work of Iraqi architect Rifat Chadirji through the collection of his original photographs and building documents held at the Arab Image Foundation in Beirut. With the work of his architectural office Iraq Consult, and in his other roles, Chadirji became a pivotal cultural figure in Baghdad during the period of its postwar modernization from the 1950s through the 1970s.
Chadirji's work as a photographer was informed by his sense of Iraq’s political and cultural precariousness, while it foresaw greater disruption ahead. Over a span of more than twenty years, Chadirji recorded the street life, social practices and spaces that he believed were threatened by development and the forces driving Iraq’s postwar evolution. He also meticulously photographed his own architectural work in an attempt to produce documents that could survive the damage, alteration and potential destruction of his buildings.
In this sense, Chadirji’s photographs and building documents exhibit at least three identities: they are an informational system describing every building within his architectural oeuvre; they are a device to preserve the image of Iraq’s experience of modernization; and they are the charged signifiers of collateral damage and historical and cultural vulnerability that marks the archives of the Arab Image Foundation.
*The exhibition originated at the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery in New York and was exhibited again at the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies of Fine Arts in Chicago.
role: exhibitions assistant, translations assistant curators: florencia alvarez, adam bandler, mark wasiuta
M.Arch and CCCP assistants and crew: becca book, grete grubelich, tania tovar torres, valentina flora angelucci, cameron dean cortez, jiangyu chen, andrea ayleen chiney, charles hajj, eugene sen chun ong, edward joseph palka, angelina andriani putri, miranda shugars, ilijana soldan, zachary ross white, haochang yu, evelyn zhang, maite borjabad, pedro ceñal murga, rosana elkhatib, ruishi ge, joachim hackl, robin hartanto, chi-chia hou, sara mcgillivray, iara pimenta.
photography: RCH, EKH, james ewing
