Berlin / Jerusalem
Between international politics and everyday life, transition and
continuity, waiting room and home. Against the backdrop of these
contradictions, today, roughly one-third of the nearly five million
Palestine refugees served by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency
(UNRWA) live in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank,
and the Gaza Strip.
Over a period of more than 60 years, temporary tent cities have
developed into complex living environments, some of which rank among the
densest urban environments in the world. Congested and
poverty-stricken, they reflect the extraordinary resilience and agency
of the refugees who inhabit them. The exhibition, which will be shown at
Deutsches Architektur Zentrum (DAZ) from 9 May to 3 June 2012, not only
displays the projects of the infrastructure and camp improvement
programme of UNRWA, but provides insights into a new culture of joint
planning with refugees which has emerged and fundamentally influenced
all those involved.
Motivated by a sense of urgency with regard to the extreme poverty,
congestion, and deteriorating environment embodied by many refugee
camps, UNRWA and host governments met with representatives of refugees
and the donor community for the 2004 Geneva Conference in order to
target worsening living conditions in camps. UNRWA used the new window
of opportunity created by the Geneva Conference to set up the
infrastructure and camp improvement programme (ICIP) in order to engage
with these issues.
Since 2007, BMZ has supported UNRWA with the development of this
programme. This involves improving, in a holistic, methodical and
comprehensive manner, the refugee camps’ physical and social environment
through the introduction of a participatory, community-driven planning
approach. The Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH
is advising UNRWA ICIP with this innovative methodology on behalf of
BMZ.
The exhibition “Space, Time, Dignity, Rights” includes four
installations that give insight into how participants in camp
improvement projects in the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon seek
to balance their refugee identity and political rights with their
day-to-day needs as residents of congested and impoverished camps. In
this process, they deal with questions such as:
- Should refugee camps have public spaces?
- Is the sense of belonging to a street or neighbourhood within a refugee camp an identity worth preserving?
- How can individual choices be balanced vis-à-vis the interest of the
entire refugee community—including the right to refuse to participate
in camp improvement?
The result is a radical reconceptualisation of what constitutes a
“refugee camp”. Rather than being a space associated with structural
discrimination, it is considered a space where inhabitants can and
should live with dignity - which goes hand in hand with the
international community's continued support of Palestine refugees until
their plight is solved in a just and lasting manner, in accordance with
UN resolutions.
The exhibition, which will be shown at Deutsches Architektur Zentrum
DAZ from 9 May to 3 June 2012, will be officially opened by Dirk Niebel,
Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development, and Filippo
Grandi, UNRWA Commissioner-General, on 8 May at 7:00 p.m. The event will
also include a panel discussion.
On the following day, 9 May 2012, the exhibition’s topic will be
further explored during an all-day academic conference, organised in
cooperation with the University of Stuttgart, Chair of International
Urbanism. Internationally-renowned academics, development experts and
representatives of United Nations organisations and the German
government have been invited to reflect upon the methodology of the
infrastructure and camp improvement programme.
Refugee camp urbanisation
in an international context as well as participatory planning
approaches will be discussed by experts such as Michel Agier (EHESS),
Patrick Coulombel (Emergency Architects), Mannoucher Lolachi (UNHCR) and
Dania Rifai (UN Habitat).
This exhibition has been made possible by the United Nations Relief
Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the
Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ),
implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale
Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) / Regional Social and Cultural Fund for Palestinian
Refugees and Gaza Population. Curatorial director of the exhibition is
Prof. Philipp Misselwitz, University of Stuttgart, Chair of
International Urbanism. Co-operation partner is the Deutsches
Architektur Zentrum (DAZ) in Berlin.
For more information about the exhibition in general, the opening event and the academic conference, please visit:
www.space-time-dignity-rights.com
