What places in the city hold deep significance to you? Is it alleyways, corner stores, parks, shopping centers, cafeterias, or something else?

How do you claim these spaces as yours?

Khaled Esguerra and Maitha Ali invite participants to take part in Map-making Memories of  Past/Present/Future Cities, a two-part workshop series that reflect on how we reclaim and reimagine urban and domestic narratives.

Cities cannot exist as they are without the people that inhabit them. Thus, the lives, stories, emotions, hopes, dreams, secrets and anxieties are as embedded into the urban as much as the structures that enable (or prevent) them. 

Through this workshop, we want these narratives to come to light, encouraged by initial group readings on urban studies and written prompts to stimulate remembering and imagining.

By using tactile tools, participants will then engage in mapping out their stories, tracing their personal paths, choosing what to claim and what to erase, and constructing speculative futures of the urban spaces that they inhabit – effectively crafting and reclaiming their urban histories that narrate personal pasts, presents and futures of cities as their own.

Open to ages 16 and above.

This workshop is free. 

About the instructors:

Maitha Ali is a performance artist, researcher, and art educator exploring intersectional/interdisciplinary themes within the ecosystems she exists and has existed in. She works with creative methodologies on topics including urbanism, human and non-human conviviality, and the domestic built environment. Maitha synthesizes her postgraduate studies in visual, material, and museum anthropology and a prior education in politics and public policy in her art and research practice.

Khaled Esguerra is a photographer, visual artist and designer from Abu Dhabi. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication from the American University of Sharjah. His artistic practice tackles the complexities and nuances of migrant identity, urban narratives and claiming space in the Gulf, situated by his experience in growing up and living in Abu Dhabi. He primarily works with photography and other image-based methods on research-driven, long-term projects that examine, document and archive the dynamics between the city and the inhabitant. Inherent to his practice is the act of walking, as a means to explore, unveil and investigate. He has exhibited in local UAE institutions like Alserkal Avenue, Jameel Arts Centre and Bayt AlMamzar, and his work has been listed in news outlets and regional magazines such as The National, Arab News, Canvas Mag, and more.

About the instructors:

Maitha Ali is a performance artist, researcher, and art educator exploring intersectional/interdisciplinary themes within the ecosystems she exists and has existed in. She works with creative methodologies on topics including urbanism, human and non-human conviviality, and the domestic built environment. Maitha synthesizes her postgraduate studies in visual, material, and museum anthropology and a prior education in politics and public policy in her art and research practice.

Khaled Esguerra is a photographer, visual artist and designer from Abu Dhabi. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication from the American University of Sharjah. His artistic practice tackles the complexities and nuances of migrant identity, urban narratives and claiming space in the Gulf, situated by his experience in growing up and living in Abu Dhabi. He primarily works with photography and other image-based methods on research-driven, long-term projects that examine, document and archive the dynamics between the city and the inhabitant. Inherent to his practice is the act of walking, as a means to explore, unveil and investigate. He has exhibited in local UAE institutions like Alserkal Avenue, Jameel Arts Centre and Bayt AlMamzar, and his work has been listed in news outlets and regional magazines such as The National, Arab News, Canvas Mag, and more.