PUBLICATIONS
Authored Books
Negotiating Conflict in Lebanon: Bordering Practices in a Divided Beirut (London: Bloomsbury, 2019) investigates the interplay between material and immaterial borders in sites of political and religious conflict. The book is a practice-led research project that employs art processes including interviews, documentations and media representations to work with residents and negotiate conditions of everyday borders. It proposes a method of negotiating; one that considers how artistic research can itself be considered as a form of a critical spatial practice and, in particular, a bordering practice – what the book terms critical bordering practice. This enables the rethinking of border positions including those between disciplines and spatial conditions, and eventually the transformation of certain borders particularly the positions of divisive political and sectarian narratives.
You can purchase it at: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/negotiating-conflict-in-lebanon-9781838603779/
Co-authored Books
Creative Refuge (Washington, DC: Tadween Publishing, 2014) documents the experience of Febrik’s three art-based workshops working with children at Burj El Barajne Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, exploring children’s dream and play. The project responds to the dense urban living conditions of the camp, and the political constraints of the status of its residents in refuge. The publication is a research document of the social and spatial findings of the three workshops and a catalog of children’s stories, dreams, play spaces, and related family histories. It is also an educational manual for practitioners and educators working with children and participatory creative processes, who are in particular interested in working with contextual and situated learning and issues of displacement, rights, and refuge. Co-authors: Mohamad Hafeda, Reem Charif, Joumana al Jabri.
You can purchase it at: http://tadweenpublishing.com/products/creative-refuge
Action of Street / Action of Room: A Directory of Public Actions (London: Serpentine Galleries, 2016) presents the outcome of Febrik’s 6-month residency at the Serpentine Galleries in (2014 – 2015) with a group of young people from Westminster Academy. The project enquires about the use and regulation of public space for young people, on and around Church Street, North London. The project employs physical interventions and film with the participants to provoke responses on the streets and in public spaces. The short publication presents the work as a directory of public actions that charts the project from filming experimental actions in the street, to reflections on their meaning in the studio. It presents 4 key spatial strategies that the participants proposed to activate public space: editing the site; pushing the limit; crossing between; and speculating on change. Co-authors: Mohamad Hafeda, Reem Charif, Serpentine Galleries.
You can download it at: https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/files/downloads/ser_feb_publication_web_0.pdf
Co-edited Books
Narrating Beirut from its Borderlines (Beirut: Heinrich Boll, 2011) is a collection of four small research studies that examine a number of the physical and immaterial borderlines that have come to define the contemporary geography of Beirut and its peripheries since 2005. Using mixed research and media approaches – ethnographic, archival, as well as artistic and architectural design tools – the participating studies address Beirut’s sectarian borderlines from a range of perspectives: the politicization of the everyday sonic material and its utilization as an ephemeral borderline between contested areas (Hafeda); the negotiations of the minority Kurdish residents of Hay el Krad in the predominantly Shiite Bourj el Brajneh (Mazraani); the urban development of the iconic Druze gated site of Dar El Ta’ifa Al Durzia (Ammouri); and the geo-political transformation of the civil war’s ruins in Beirut’s peripheries as they take on another life in the current sectarian conflict (Bou Akar). Co-editors: Mohamad Hafeda, Hiba Bou Akar.
You can download it at: https://www.academia.edu/1220011/Narrating_Beirut_from_Its_Borderlines_2011
Chapters
2018 | Hafeda, M. The Flour Road: Regenerating an Urban Method. In Transcribe: Participatory Actions in Braga’s Social Housing Estates. Daniel Duarte Pereira, Fernando P Ferreira (eds.). Braga: Municpio de Braga and Space Transcribers
2017 | Hafeda, M. and Charif, R. A Space for Ambiguity: Play and Playfulness as Spaces of Protest. In Trading Places: Practices of Public Participation in Art and Design Research. Hermes, D., Bueno de Mesquita, N. and Veneycken, A. (eds.). Barcelona: dpr-barcelona
2016 | Hafeda, M. The Twin Sisters are ‘about to’ Swap Houses. In Engaged Urbanism: Cities and Methodologies. Campkin, B. and Duijzings, G. (eds.). London: I.B. Tauris
2016 | Hafeda, M. and Charif, R. Definitions of Playgrounds. In Growing with Design. Benesch, H. (ed). Gothenburg: Gothenburg University
2016 | Hafeda, M. Negotiating and Narrating Urban Public Spaces as Forms of Bordering Practices. In Open City Lagos. Disu, O. and Umunna, M. (eds.). Nigeria: Heinrich Böll Foundation Nigeria, Nsibidi Institute, Fabulous Urban
2015 | Hafeda, M. Negotiating and Narrating Urban Public Spaces as Forms of Bordering Practices. In Practicing the Public: About Shared Spaces in Beirut. Fawaz, M., Gharbieh, A. Bekdache, N. and Saksouk, A. (eds.). Beirut: As-Safir daily on October 13, 2015
2013 | Hafeda, M. This is How Stories of Conflict Circulate and Resonate. In Peripheries. Abdelmonem, M.G. and Murrow, R. (eds.). London: Routledge.
2012 | Hafeda, M., Charif, R. and Al Jabri, J. Edge of play. In Boundaries. International Architectural Magazine, no. 3, January. Italy
2011 | Hafeda, M. and Charif, R. Curious Objects. In The cat came as a tomato: Conversations on play and contemporary art practice. London: South London Gallery
2011 | Hafeda, M., Charif, R. and Al Jabri, J. Working in a Palestinian Refugee Camp: Talbiyeh, Jordan. In Volume # 26: Architecture of Peace. Amsterdam: Archis
Journal Articles
2016 | Hafeda, M. Bordering Practice: Negotiating Theory and Practice. In Architecture and Culture, vol. 4, no. 3. London: Taylor & Francis.
Articles
2022 | Hafeda, M. Negotiating the temporalities of borders and displacements. In Grant in Focus, Philip Leverhulme Prize 2021 (leverhulme.ac.uk). London: Leverhulme Trust.