Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti on Pro-Palestine Campus Encampments

In an interview with Artribune, architects Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti, winners of the Golden Lion at the 2023 Venice Biennale and founders of DAAR (Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency), discuss the wave of pro-Palestine student encampments. They link the protests to earlier movements like Black Lives Matter and climate activism, noting that Greta Thunberg has joined the encampment at Stockholm University. Petti emphasizes the need to create new narratives rather than trying to convince opponents, while Hilal highlights the importance of experiential knowledge, drawing from her mother and grandmother's grassroots education during the First Intifada. The conversation also covers their projects, including Campus in Camps (2012) and Concrete Tent (2015) in Dheisheh refugee camp, Bethlehem. The interview was prompted by an invitation from a permanent assembly at IUAV University in Venice, where students demanded institutional response to the Gaza genocide. The university initially supported the lecture but later withdrew, citing security reasons; students relocated to the Cotonificio Auditorium.