Disappearing into Night

David Kendall

In Gulf cities the rapid development of urban infrastructures transforms the built environment. At night in Doha (Qatar) artificial light and the built environment fuse together to produce distinct visual landscapes. In these settings electrical light sculpts new architectural landscapes and reorganises boundaries in soon-to-be forgotten neighbourhoods erased by 24-hour construction sites. As a result, the buildings in Doha are not only sites of infrastructural order, but become politically and socially active through destruction and reconstruction. These ever-shifting edge conditions create fertile ground from which the urban imaginary can arise from the Anthropocene. Therefore, transforming fluid ocular and sonic boundaries in communal spaces where people rest, worship and trade amid these active construction sites: locales that appear to be silent yet in visible reality never sleep in the sky glow enveloping the biosphere.

Artist biography

David Kendall's practice explores how spatial, economic and design initiatives, as well as participatory practices, combine to encourage social and spatial interconnection or dissonance in cities. Kendall utilises visual archives, mapping, and events to activate and generate his photographic, audiovisual and site-specific projects. His photographs, spatial research and collaborative film projects have been exhibited, screened and presented internationally at festivals, cultural institutions and museums including: The Jüdisches Museum Berlin, Germany, Centro Cultural Manuel Gómez Morín, Queretaro, Mexicó and Tate Britain, London, UK.

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