Libya’s Interregnum: Spatial archives of trauma and transformation

This is a tale that traces temporal spaces that developed throughout Libya’s history as an ideological persistent and systemic pattern of “Emergency” making - shaped by the “transitional governments”, where the country has never in fact been in a stable political and economic state.. Political, cultural, economic, and spatial boundaries become blurred, full of gaps and open for endless reinterpretations.. The Libyan city grows monstrously through its intractable lines of flight, and urban informality overlaps, coexists, or sometimes even resists the state’s absence and informality, where official laws of justice and ownership are not activated. This liminal space created a new way of place making, or rather, a process of un-making space devoid of the rigid historical identities and myths.. This tale questions the current space and time in the Libyan city as what Antonio Gramsci called an “interregnum”… a permanent temporary space of violence, refugee, survival, but also transgression, resistance and potential transformation.
Sarri Elfaitouri is a 25 years old conceptual architect, artist, art curator, and cultural producer based in Benghazi, Libya. He is the founder of TAJARROD Architecture and Art Foundation. Sarri’s work is centered on an interdisciplinary synthesis between architecture, art, and the social sciences, dedicated to generating a critical understanding and attitude towards the built environment, and to investigating contemporary socio-cultural issues, identities and ideologies, and their impact on architecture and cities.