ABOUT THE PROJECT
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Video @AKyriazis
The Exhibition
In this exhibition, viewers are transported to Abu Dhabi from its low-rise, mono-functional, and car-reliant suburbs to its mixed-use, high-density and livelier city centre. A photographic and video journey shows the fragmentation of the landscape revealing the impact that roads create on local populations.
In Abu Dhabi, roads connect spaces afar while creating barriers between neighbourhoods. Road infrastructure has been essential to the rapid urban development of the Gulf cities, but it has often taken priority over urban planning hindering accessibility and promoting car dependency – a ‘car culture’ that addressed the arid desert climate and cultural particularities, but it is now rooted in all aspects of daily city life.
Images capture the current impact of car-centric development and motion design to explore a set of possible futures. These creative scenarios are metaphors that intend to alert policymakers to the need for a quick and more sustainable adaptation of Abu Dhabi to climatic changes.
More about the project
Abu Dhabi (Dis)connected is one of the final outputs of a two-year research project Roads as Tools for (Dis)connecting Cities and Neighbourhoods: a Socio-spatial Study of Abu Dhabi, a collaboration between LSE and Abu Dhabi University. A project managed by LSE Middle East Centre and supported by the Emirates Foundation. The London exhibition is in association with LSE Arts.
The material of the exhibition is produced and coordinated by the research team and includes additional images taken by Abu Dhabi University Architecture and Design students under the supervision of Apostolos Kyriazis. The motion design was created by students from Care Design Lab - L'École de design Nantes Atlantique, under the supervision of Clémence Montagne and Nicolas David.
We also want to thank Dr Michael Mason and Robert Lowe at LSE Middle East Centre, Professor Ricky Burdett and Dr Philipp Rode at LSE Cities, the Chairs of the Department of Architecture and Design Dr Magdy Ibrahim and Dr Osama Mohamed, the Research Office Director Dr Philip Hamill, the ADU Provost Prof. Thomas Glas-Hochstettler and the former ADU Chancellor, Prof. Waqar Ahmad at Abu Dhabi University.
A special mention to Eiman Shahin (LSE MEC researcher) for helping in the preparation of the exhibition and design of the webiste. Also, to Sepehr Zhand and Branwen Spector (researchers at LSE) and Nour Al Ali, Juman Feras Sebai, Haya Omar Al Baiti and Hiba Hafeez Syed (researchers at Abu Dhabi University) who helped with the research project. Along with all those who provided us with their local and institutional knowledge and daily narratives.
Photo @AKyriazis