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SACRILEGE
This Week From The Editor

To believe in something is a powerful thing. Some hold sacred their creative practices, families or worldly riches, or find it in nature's truths, and scented rituals of worship. Spirituality is subjective and the routes toward it are manifold. Many grow up with faith, and some grow into it. But there surely comes a time (or many) when this faith is questioned, its certainty profaned by doubt.

What is Sacred? Sacrosanct? Sacrilege?

What is considered 'sacred' and is it so for all? What are its collective, creative or personal limits, and is its sanctity sovereign and invincible? Does it remain immaculate when probed? Would you consider it sacrilege, subversion or a sign of necessary evolution, when belief in dominant systems, objects or people is dismantled or revoked? This issue inquires through creative ventures, the results of viewing something once sacred from the perspective of the 'other'.

Danah Abdulla, a Palestinian-Canadian designer, educator and researcher speaks on the appropriation of the term 'decolonisation', and how 'good design' can aid in subverting institutions of power. Was the dramatic shift in church architecture across post-war Europe, built to the pragmatic ideals of Modernism, welcomed, or considered as sacrilege? Photographer Jamie McGregor Smith examines this in his monograph, 'Sacred Modernity: The Holy Embrace of Modernist Architecture.' We also reckon how well RIBA's show, 'Raise the Roof: Building for Change' fares in probing the prestigious institution's own racially and imperially charged history, and whether it confronts or corrects those ties for a better future.

Let's reconsider: Is challenging faith subversive or sacrilegious?

Amit Gupta

Danah Abdulla on the procedures of decolonising design and design education
Danah Abdulla on the procedures of decolonising design and design education
See See

The fluid matters and leaky discourse surrounding 'Wet Dreams' at CentroCentro

12 MIN READ    Read More

Think

Photographing the multivalence of 'Sacred Modernity' with Jamie McGregor Smith

10 MIN READ    Read More

Think
Inspire Inspire

Art and anthropology intersect in Samak Kosem's interdisciplinary practice

10 MIN READ    Read More

Reflect

We Design Beirut 2024

Date

23-26 May, 2024

LOCATION

Beirut, Lebanon

We Design Beirut 2024

We Design Beirut is a platform dedicated to promoting the best of Arab and regional design. The launch of its four-day inaugural programme includes Villa Audi's exhibition 'Past Echoes: A Journey through Middle Eastern Product Design', Nada Debs' showcase 'SWIRLMANIA', PSLab's 'Vision from Beirut', and more.

Learn More
STIRpad

NEWS

Centre Pompidou's exhibit on the evolution of children's furniture is a playful treat

Centre Pompidou's exhibit on the evolution of children's furniture is a playful treat

06 MIN READ     Read More

Separator

Vitra Design Museum calls to 'Transform! Designing the Future of Energy'

Vitra Design Museum calls to 'Transform! Designing the Future of Energy'

07 MIN READ     Read More

Building for Change

RIBA's latest exhibition: Confrontational or corrective?

11 MIN READ

Anmol Ahuja

Building for Change

A series of commissions at RIBA's 'Raise the Roof: Building for Change' attempt to probe the elite institute's racially and imperially charged history.

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