DAAR – Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti
The artistic research practice of DAAR – Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti – is situated between architecture, art, pedagogy, and politics. Over the last two decades, they have developed a series of research-projects that are both theoretically ambitious and practically engaged in the struggle for justice and equality. In their artistic research practice, art exhibitions are both sites of display and sites of action that spill over into other contexts: built architectural structures, the shaping of critical learning environments, interventions that challenge dominant collective narratives, the production of new political imaginations, the formation of civic spaces and the re-definition of concepts. DAAR has participated in multiple editions of the Venice Biennale (2003-2021), the Berlin Biennale (2022), the Istanbul Biennial (2009), the São Paulo Biennial (2014) and the Marrakesh Biennial (2016), among others. Recent major retrospective exhibitions have taken place at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven (2019), Mosaic Room in London (2022), and La Loge in Brussels (2023). Their artistic practice has been awarded The Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism at Bard College and The Golden Lion for Best Participation at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, for their long-standing commitment to deep political engagement with architectural and learning practices of decolonization in Palestine and Europe.
