postscript
In the MAXXI of Rome, there was a recent exhibition of Ricardo Dalisi’s work. Especially striking are the workshops Dalisi and his students of Napoli’s Faculty of Architecture Federico II did with the children in Naples, in the area of Rione Traino (1971-74), a district that arose during the post-war reconstruction of social housing in Italy and was suffering from lack of amenities and criminality. The photos in black and white taken by Mimmo Jodice of the children and the structures they were building up, playing with or climbing on, first came to my mind when looking at the children of Gaza, today, hanging and swaying on electrical cables that lie useless after the besieged city is plunged in blackout. It seems that play, historically, is most creative in an extreme situation, a context in which scarcity fuels creativity in a deliberate intent to play out the materials at hand. This is what Dalisi, a member of the experimental educational program Global Tools (1973-75) was doing: the making of objects through participation and self-engagement: tecnologia povera, ordinary materials offered as tools for children to shape their environment. Even in a disruptive situation that endangers their childhood, children seek to play, and to study. This makeshift classroom in Gaza, says it all. Even the children who cannot sit are lining up against the wall, a wall that seems infinite, going beyond the picture frame to reach the thousands of displaced children. The room is insignificant, the architecture is a collective decision to transform it into a classroom, into a living experience. It is a reversal of school scenery, an escape moment, where children are happy to be together, happy to be in this in-between space: the space of play. A glimpse of the Ratna Škola.
Jean-Franois Pirson at the Venice Biennale, 2018.
Photographs by Mimmo Jodice, captured from the MAXXI exhibition of Ricardo Dalisi’s work in Naples, 1971-74.
Conjuntos divertidos para distfrutarios . eye.on.palestine, instagram: Near the Egyptian border, displaced children use electrical wires to play with, amid the complete blackout in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the Israeli aggression. Photos Belal Khaled / @anadoluajansi
eye.on.palestine The Palestinian youth Tarek Enabbi teaches children at one of the displaced civilian shelters in Rafah. Via @rabie _ noqaira . 19 décembre 2023 https://www.instagram.com/p/C1DCTc jgXGf/?igsh=M3p2ajdzc312a21x
DARINE CHOUEIRI is an architect-urbanist interested in stories that are embedded spatially. She explores the relation between walking, mapping and the production of narratives, and the power of the built environment in shaping structures of everyday life. atablewithaview.com Instagram: DarineChoueiri
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on site review 44 : play
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