AT HER BALCONY
Video, photography, diagrams, map, text Beirut, 2010
At Her Balcony was a multimedia installation that captured the dynamics of negotiation between surveillance mechanisms in urban environments and residents in their interior spaces.
Asking two women living in opposing buildings for access to their balconies to capture photographic panoramas of the neighbourhood, Hafeda observed the surveillance operated by male militia personnel in order to investigate the resulting geographical, political and emotional borders imposed upon civilians. The resulting project examined the similarities and differences between art practices and surveillance in regards to the observation and documentation of subjects.
The women had polar opposite views of surveillance; one saw it as providing safety, while the other saw it as a threat. Hafeda used this photography and additional video footage shot from a car travelling along the street between the two buildings to create a spatial narrative concerning what he describes as the ‘bordering practice’ of ‘crossing’ surveillance, which is both a physical and visual activity. The installation proposed that the practice of ‘seeing’ urban space is not merely an optical process, but also relates to residents’ subjectivities and political differences in perception of surveillance. This was part of Negotiating Conflict series.
Exhibited at ‘Cities Methodologies 2010’, University College London (UCL), with the support of the Bartlett School of Architecture