X-TALK #27 BY CLUSTER

Monday January 9th at 7pm at Al Balad Theater Talk by OMAR NAGATI and BETH STRYKER of CLUSTER

CRITICAL MAPPING AND CREATIVE INTERVENTIONS: Learning from Downtown Cairo

Abstract: Over the the past few years, CLUSTER has been engaged in a number of projects mapping and archiving the fast changing political and urban landscape in Cairo. These projects include mapping of heritage sites and creative initiatives, as well as networks of passageways and rooftops as sites for potential development in downtown Cairo. CLUSTER’s mapping initiative (clustermappinginitiative.org) includes online platforms for resource sharing and frameworks for critical interventions and urban regeneration. This presentation aims at sharing CLUSTER’s experience in Cairo with art, architecture and urban initiatives, and exploring possibilities to extend CLUSTER’s tools and mapping methods to the local context in Amman and to further regional variations.

About CLUSTER, OMAR NAGATI, and BETH STRYKER:

CLUSTER — Cairo Lab for Urban Studies, Training and Environmental Research — was founded in 2011 in downtown Cairo, as a platform for urban research, architecture, art, and design initiatives. CLUSTER engages critical theorization while being grounded in professional practice, with an emphasis on participatory design processes. CLUSTER co-founders and principals Omar Nagati and Beth Stryker are authors of City in Flux: Cairo’s Shifting Urban Landscape SinceRevolution, editors of Creative Cities: Re-framing Downtown Cairo, and co-editors with Magda Mostafa of Learning from Cairo: Global Perspectives and Future Visions.

Nagati is a graduate of Cairo University; he studied and taught at the University of British Columbia and University of California, Berkeley, with a specific focus on informal urbanism. In Cairo he has taught architecture and urban design studios at Mansoura University the Modern Sciences and Arts University and Cairo University, and is currently appointed as a Visiting Professor at the University of Sheffield.

Stryker received her B.A from Columbia University, and her M.Arch from Princeton University. She has curated exhibitions and programs for the Ramallah Municipality, D-CAF, Beirut Art Center, the Center for Architecture in New York (where she held the position of Director of Programs), and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, among other venues. She was a visiting Research Professor at SUNY Purchase from 2013-2015.

CLUSTER has received critical recognition for its work, including a nomination for the Curry Stone Design Prize (2014) and inclusion in the 15th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, representing Egypt (2016).

www.clustercairo.org