Sahar Qawsami of SAKIYA - ART/SCIENCE/AGRICULTURE: Pedagogies of the Commons

Sahar Qawsami of Sakiya in conversation with Adam Jasper, Stefanie Knobel, and Federico Luisetti Sakiya is a progressive academy, a field for experimental knowledge production and sharing in Ein Qiniya, a village 7 kilometres west of Ramallah, Palestine. By grafting local agrarian traditions of self-sufficiency with contemporary arts and ecological practices, Sakiya seek to create a new narrative around our relationship to land, knowledge, and the commons. Within the framework of a cross disciplinary residency program, marginalised cultural actors, such as farmers and crafts/small industry initiatives, assume a prominent role alongside artists and scholars, challenging the demographic divide that characterises cultural production and consumption. Through self-sufficient practices, agriculture connects with contemporary arts and sciences for a more sustainable and resilient future. These practices are not new but are continuously and increasingly threatened by the forces of colonisation and neoliberal modes of production. Liberation, we at Sakiya believe, comes from a connection and re-framing of an ancient relationship to the land. SAHAR QAWASMI is an architect restorer and co‐founder of Sakiya – Art | Science | Agriculture with Nida Sinnokrot. She is dedicated to protecting, (re)claiming, (re)building, and (re)imagining different forms of common structures and infrastructures, challenging and reconfiguring private ownership and isolating social practices. She engages with collective indigenous, environmental, and feminist methodologies of learning and unlearning to cultivate space for a wider ecology of knowledge. The event is part of the lecture series SESSIONS ON TERRITORY—Urbanism & the Countryside. CONCEPT AND REALISATION Chair of Architecture and Territorial Planning, ETH Zurich Department of Architecture Prof. Milica Topalović Dr. Nitin Bathla Dr. Nazlı Tümerdem Hans Hortig VIDEO RECORDING AND EDITING Aymane Hayyene Filali GRAPHIC DESIGN Goda Budvytyte SESSIONS ON TERRITORY is a series of public debates on the political economy of architecture and territory. Focusing on agriculture, the upcoming series will draw upon relationships of care and reciprocity with soil and biodiversity from the past and present, to help move beyond consumerist techno-fixes, and toward more self-sufficient and ecological land practices. Through a series of debates with invited guests, the seminar will explore the critical agrarian questions emerging under 21st-century (extended) urbanisation. Every intervention by a guest speaker is followed by a panel discussion with invited respondents. Please find all lectures here: https://topalovic.arch.ethz.ch/Course... CHAPTERS 00:00 Intro 11:05 Sahar Qawsami's presentation 1:05:35 Stefanie Knobel 1:10:35 Federico Luisetti 1:16:52 Milica Topalović 1:23:45 Questions from the audience 1:42:20 Adam Jasper 1:51:47 Nazlı Tümerdem 2:05:10 Milica Topalović closes the session