DRY - WET

This workshop concentrates on inhabiting two situational extremes: the desert and the ocean. Examining the United Arab Emirates and the island Republic of Maldives, students will immerse themselves in relationships to water at its limits and apogees. This fundamental (and universal) relationship between communities and their physical land introduces a multiplicity of geographies rooted not only in place, but also in situation; the hyper specificity of place, is contrasted to the rapid onset of globalization; identities that have been made, perceived, created, and recreated. Students will define, research, and extract geographies: social, political, ecological, and educational climates, mapping patterns and rhythms of identity. At the end of the workshop, participants will develop a typology for the built environment as it relates to water and compile documentation and research into a collective narrative documentary comprised of three minute chapters that examine the shifting definitions of ground and explore ideas of place, and placeless, ground and groundless. In fall of 2018, in collaboration with the MAK Center in Los Angeles, CA.

For more information, watch this video or contact Christoph Kumpusch, ck2540@columbia.edu.