Open Call
Open Call: DAAS in Cairo
DAAS in Sharjah-Cairo emerged from the need to find belonging, grounding, and companionship in a time of rupture and displacement. Amid ongoing colonial invasions in Palestine and elsewhere, our search for support led us to Cairo, where we met a group of Palestinian artists and architects who had survived the genocide in Gaza. Out of our initial conversations, a powerful concept surfaced — Ezwa (عزوة). It weaves together notions of belonging, resilience, and relation, offering a framework for navigating the complexities of communal support. Ezwa defines a collective practice of mutual care and solidarity that extends beyond kinship or nationality. It is grounded in friendship and trust, where individuals support one another in moments of difficulty, and share experiences of accomplishment. As an evolving community built through relation, Ezwa offers a sense of belonging and hope amid displacement and uncertainty, reminding us that knowledge and resilience emerge through being together. It is from within this web of relations that the 2025 edition of the Decolonizing Architecture Art Studies (DAAS) programme takes shape. DAAS in Sharjah-Cairo grows from the very soil of Ezwa — from the companionship and intellectual support formed among architects, artists, and thinkers who live between places, in the uncertainty of displacement and waiting.
To converse, al-muhādatha (المحادثة), in Arabic means more than to speak. It comes from the root ḥ-d-th (حدث), which holds together the meanings of happening, narrating, and conversing. A conversation is therefore not merely an exchange of words but a happening – an event through which something unforeseen comes into being.
DAAS in Sharjah-Cairo uses this ground as a method. It is not built on a fixed curriculum but on the fragile and fertile act of conversing. Knowledge here does not flow from teacher to student but emerges between participants, through encounters, shared practices, and the willingness to remain open to uncertainty.
In DAAS, vulnerability is not treated as weakness, but as the very condition of learning and searching. Participants are invited to bring their doubts, hesitations, and questions, and in doing so they make space for others to do the same. In this openness genuine connections take form, and the distance between theory and practice, between the personal and the collective, can be crossed.
Participants are asked to select a site as a source of knowledge and a foundation for their research inquiries and practical work. This site is understood as an anchor for reflection and action. It can be a physical place such as a building or a living room, or an immaterial one such as memory, the body, or skin. What is important in the selection of the site is to feel grounded and knowledgeable. Examples for selecting a site can be found in The Living Room project.
After selecting the site, participants are encouraged to reflect on one or more concepts emerging from it to ground and test their theories both within the site and in their own practice. The participants are invited to cultivate a constant oscillation between the tangible constraints of actual sites and the concepts that open up a critical understanding of them. For instance, from The Living Room emerged the concept of “hospitality.”
This artistic research-based and pedagogical approach is exemplified in the book Permanent Temporariness, where seventeen site-specific research projects are activated by fourteen different concepts: Al Masha/Common, Borders, Camp, Confession, Decolonization, Exile, Heritage, Madafeh/Hospitality, Mujawaara/Neighboring, Participation, Profanation, Representation, Returns, and Tawtin/Normalization.
This collective effort to conceptualise artistic practice-based research forms a “Collective Dictionary,” encompassing individual and shared terms that establish the theoretical framework for individual and collaborative actions. This collective dictionary fosters a community where peers share diverse sites and concepts, nurturing each other’s research endeavours.
The programme begins by sharing their life journeys, forming alliances, and fostering a communal space for mutual learning. Participants create an environment where they can share experiences, take risks, and be vulnerable without fear of exposure. This communal space allows for the expression of doubts and uncertainties rather than a display of finished projects. Participants then respond to the programme’s focus on connecting sites and concepts, allowing for critical reflection on their practice within social and political contexts. The programme does not offer preconceived knowledge but helps participants build their own individual and collective frameworks that give meaning to actions and practices. At the end of the programme, participants will be equipped to contextualise their practice within a broader theoretical framework and articulate it in public.
DAAS in Sharjah-Cairo grows from the foundations laid by the 2024 cohort in Sharjah. That first group of fellows, coming from different sites and contexts across the world, shaped not only the vocabulary, but the very ethos of DAAS. Through their work with sites, concepts, and the shared vulnerability of learning together, they, together with the advisory board, formed the relational ground on which the programme now stands.
Their contributions continue to resonate; the questions they opened, the forms of companionship they practiced, and the collective dictionary they helped articulate remain active forces shaping DAAS as it moves to Cairo. In this sense, the 2024 fellows constitute a living archive of the programme, not a static record but a community of thinkers, artists, and architects whose work continues to accompany future cohorts.
As DAAS takes root in Cairo, the 2024 fellows will remain part of its fabric. They will accompany the new participants by offering their friendship, mentorship, and intellectual companionship, extending the spirit of Ezwa across distances and years. Each new participant therefore enters an ongoing conversation rather than starting from zero. DAAS is carried by people rather than places, forming a community that is grounded, mobile, and continually expanding through the bonds created between those who walk through it.
The programme draws on DAAR’s trusted network of regional collaborators, notably Alserkal Arts Foundation, which will enable the participants from Gaza who are currently displaced in Cairo to follow the programme by contributing to their participation costs, including fees, accommodation, and transportation. Together with SAT, they intend to bring elements of the programme to their communities.
The programme unfolds throughout the year through three in-person sessions: Spring 2026 (March 30–April 5), (September 2026), and (March 2027), sustained in between by online one-to-one and group conversations that keep dialogue alive across the year.
Two of the sessions will take place in Cairo hosted by Ard International, while the third will be a public one-week gathering in Sharjah, hosted in collaboration with the Sharjah Architecture Triennial (SAT). The Sharjah gathering brings together participants from all DAAS cohorts, advisory board members, and friends of the programme.
During these sessions, participants will engage in conversations, site visits, collective practices, walks, and communal meals. Attendance at all three in-person sessions is mandatory, requiring participants to fully immerse themselves and suspend other activities for the duration of the week-long programme.
The Spring session in Cairo focuses on participants sharing their personal journeys in conversation, creating a space for vulnerability, mutual recognition, and the weaving together of individual trajectories into a collective process.
The summer session in Cairo builds on this foundation, deepening the connections between participants’ journeys, sites, and concepts. This session remains centered on conversation – with peers, with invited guests, and with the city itself – as a way to ground reflection in lived experience rather than formal instruction.
The fall session in Sharjah functions as a reunion for all DAAS participants across years, bringing together current and previous cohorts. It is structured as a public gathering, a week of collective conversations in which the vocabulary of DAAS is placed into dialogue with wider communities, extending the resonance of the programme.
Two introductory sessions about the scope and structure of DAAS Sharjah–Cairo will be held in January:
– January 16: in-person session in Cairo
– January 20: online session
During these sessions, interested participants can ask questions and seek clarification. Optional individual online meetings will also be available afterward. For those who wish to familiarise themselves with the previous year’s discussions, the recordings from the 2024 Sharjah online sessions are available here.
– Letter of Interest (1–3 pages)
– CV and/or Portfolio (maximum 10 pages, up to 20 MB)
A Master’s degree in a relevant field of study or equivalent prior learning (professional experience). DAAS in Sharjah–Cairo encourages applicants who do not hold a formal Master’s degree to apply by demonstrating equivalent experience. The programme aspires to foster an egalitarian and diverse research environment.
All applications should be submitted by email to info@sharjaharchitecture.org, with the subject heading “DAAS in Sharjah–Cairo”, by midnight (GMT+4) on January 30.
The fee includes participation in all sessions and accommodation during the Cairo sessions of DAAS in Sharjah–Cairo.
DAAS Sharjah–Cairo will offer financial aid for applicants who request partial or full exemption from the enrolment fee. Details on how to apply for financial aid will be provided during the selection process.
Contact
info@decolonizins.ps
Advisory board
Hoor Al Qasimi, Salah M. Hassan, Walter Mignolo, May Al-Dabbagh, Shahram Khosravi, Zoe Butt, Charles Esche.