In this exhibition, viewers are transported to Abu Dhabi from its low-rise, mono-functional, and car-reliant suburbs to its mixed-use, high-density, and livelier city centre. A photographic and video journey shows the fragmentation of the landscape revealing the impact that roads create on local populations.
In Abu Dhabi, roads connect spaces afar while creating barriers between neighbourhoods. Road infrastructure has been essential to the rapid urban development of the Gulf cities, but it has often taken priority over urban planning hindering accessibility and promoting car dependency – a ‘car culture’ that addressed the arid desert climate and cultural particularities, but it is now rooted in all aspects of daily city life.
Images capture the current impact of car-centric development and motion design to explore a set of possible futures. These creative scenarios are metaphors that intend to alert policy makers to the need for a quick and more sustainable adaptation of Abu Dhabi to climatic changes.
The launch event will take place on Friday 10 March from 5-8pm, you can register at Abu Dhabi (Dis)connected: an evening of art and research
More about the exhibition
This exhibition is a visual art output of a two-year research project managed by the LSE Middle East Centre and funded by the Emirates Foundation. The “Roads as Tools for (Dis)connecting Cities and Neighbourhoods: A Socio-spatial Study of Abu Dhabi” research team includes Alexandra Gomes (LSE Cities), Apostolos Kyriazis (Abu Dhabi University), Clémence Montagne (consultant) and Peter Schwinger (consultant). The exhibition is curated by Kara Blackmore, with the support of Kendall Livingston, Projects Manager and Eiman Shahin, Research Assistant at the LSE Middle East Centre.
The material of the exhibition is produced and coordinated by the research team and includes additional images taken by Abu Dhabi University Architecture and Design students under the supervision of Apostolos Kyriazis. The motion design were created by students from Care Design Lab - L'École de design Nantes Atlantique, under the supervision of Clémence Montagne and Nicolas David.
Just economics and politics? Think again. While LSE does not teach arts or music, there is a vibrant cultural side to the School - from weekly free music concerts in the Shaw Library, and an LSE orchestra and choir with their own professional conductors, various film, art and photographic student societies, the annual LSE photo prize competition, the LSE Festival and artist-in-residence projects. For more information please view the LSE Arts website.
Photo: Apostolos Kyriazis