Abir Saksouk (Public Works): Mapping and Documentation as Tools Against Erasure

Public Works Studio is a multidisciplinary research and design studio that critically and creatively engages with various urban and public issues in Lebanon. Through collaboration with a network of professionals ranging from historians and journalists to artists and filmmakers, the studio initiates research projects that study, shape, and implement counter-strategies to urban planning and policy-making. Founded in 2012 by architect/urbanist Abir Saksouk and designer/urbanist Nadine Bekdache, who were grappling with how to rebuild in a place where violence dismantles the very idea of urban justice, Public Works has had to explore a wide array of action research, analysis, and visualization tools to deal with the sheer breadth of social, ecological, and political challenges in Lebanon. This presentation by Abir Saksouk narrates cities and towns targeted by the ongoing Israeli aggressions on Lebanon as sites of contestation between conceived plans and lived realities. It underscores the power of documentation, material evidence, and mapping in deconstructing dominant discourses around places and their reconstruction.

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Abir Saksouk graduated as an architect in 2005, and later did her master's in Urban Development Planning. She is the co-founder and co-director of Public Works, a multidisciplinary research and advocacy studio engaged critically and creatively with a number of urban and public issues in Lebanon. Her primary focus includes urbanism and law, property and shared space, and the right to the city of marginalized communities.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.

Time: 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm EST/GMT-5

Location: Online Event

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