My week or so of settling in to the city is over, and I have been beginning to think about some of the spatial and architectural conditions I'd like to work with. It's in many ways a liminal space, with conflict-driven areas of urban growth and ingrained biopolitical control, emergent nationalisms, and capital-driven expansions and demographic shifts.
For now, I'm interested in exploring the material narratives of the city because it seems that at the opposite ends of the two poles of construction (the preservation and subsequent use of heritage buildings, and the new growth of city to accomodate both the expanding middle classes and IDP populations from the cleared countryside) are basalt and marble quarries and brick and cement factories, connected by political processes, globalisation and labour flows. I'm interested in tracing lines of production, extraction, and transit, and the modes of use and appearance of the very different materials.
