This event opens the exhibition Ruptured Domesticity: Mapping Spaces of Refuge in Iraq by Sana Murrani, hosted at LSE until 12 May 2023.

Murrani will be joined by Ammar Azzouz and Dena Qaddumi for a broad-ranging discussion on the exhibition and her forthcoming book Rupturing architecture: spatial practices of refuge in response to war and violence in Iraq (Bloomsbury, 2024). Themes will include the role of architecture and the built environment in understanding violence and trauma; deep-mapping and visual story-telling; and the role of diaspora populations in knowledge production on the Middle East.

The launch event will take place from 6-7pm, followed by a reception in the exhibition space until 8pm.

Ruptured Domesticity: Mapping Spaces of Refuge in Iraq is part of a wider programme of events marking the 20th anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Meet our speakers and chair

Ammar Azzouz is a research associate at the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, and a lecturer in Heritage Studies at the School of Philosophy and Art History, University of Essex. He studied architecture in Homs, Syria, before moving to the UK to complete his PhD at the University of Bath. He is an editor at Arab Urbanism, and a collective member of City Journal. Between 2017 and 2022, he worked at Arup, London, on different projects related to inclusive environment, migration and cities, and urban violence. In 2020, he released several films on these themes including Questions of Memory and War and Cities Don’t Lie. He is the author of Domicide: Architecture, War and the Destruction of Home in Syria (Bloomsbury, 2023).

Sana Murrani is an associate professor in spatial practice at the University of Plymouth. She studied architecture at Baghdad University School of Architecture at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Sana completed her PhD in the UK. Sana’s main research falls within the fields of architecture, human geography and urban studies in particular, the imaginative negotiations of spatial practices and social justice. She is the founder of the Displacement Studies Research Network and co-founder of the Justice and Imagination in Global Displacement research collective.

Dena Qaddumi is a fellow in City Design and Social Science, Department of Sociology at LSE. Her research spans architectural and urban studies and draws on postcolonial urban theory, political geography, and cultural studies. Her current work is concerned with how revolution is materialized in Tunis. Qaddumi has worked in architecture, urban planning, and higher education in New York, London, Palestine and Doha.

More about this event

This event has been organised by the LSE Middle East Centre. The LSE Middle East Centre builds on LSE's long engagement with the Middle East and North Africa and provides a central hub for the wide range of research on the region carried out at LSE.

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