Malkit Shoshan Explained

Malkit Shoshan
Birth Date:1976
Birth Place:Haifa, Israel[1]
Alma Mater:Technion – Israel Institute of Technology[2]
Nationality:Israeli and Dutch
Occupation:Designer
Organization:Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory (FAST)
Notable Works:BLUE

Malkit Shoshan (born 1976[3]) is a designer, author, lecturer and founder of FAST, an architectural think tank that addresses "the relationships between architecture, urban planning, and human rights."[4]

Career

Shoshan studied architecture at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia.

Her interest in cross-disciplinary and multi-scalar work exploring the impact of urban planning, and human rights in conflict and post-conflict areas started in 2005 when she founded FAST alongside Michiel Schwarz, Willem Velthoven and Alwine van Heemstra as a response to a request raised by a Palestinian community of internally displaced persons named Ein Hawd that needed a planning alternative to the one imposed by the Israeli government.

In 2015, she was a finalist for the Wheelwright Prize, a $100,000 traveling fellowship awarded by the Harvard Graduate School of Design.[5] One year later, Shoshan was named curator of the Dutch Pavilion for the Venice Architecture Biennale with the exhibition "BLUE: Architecture of UN Peacekeeping Missions".[6]

In 2021, Shoshan won The Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture for her collaborative project "Watermelons, Sardines, Crabs, Sands, and Sediments: Border Ecologies and the Gaza Strip."[7]

She is currently Area Head of the Art, Design, and the Public Domain Master in Design Studies at Harvard GSD and a visiting scholar at the Institute for Public Knowledge at NYU.

Publications

Shoshan's book Atlas of Conflict: Israel-Palestine was published in 2010.[8] The book details Israel's emergence and Palestine's disappearance over the past hundred years.

She is the co-author of the book Village. One Land Two Systems and Platform Paradise (Damiani Editore), a series of narratives based on the Ein Hawd experience. Among other publications, Shoshan published BLUE: Architecture of UN Peacekeeping Missions (Actar) in 2023, a book based on the Dutch Pavilion she was curator of at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale. The publication "traces the complex processes and mechanisms" behind the conduct of United Nations peacekeeping missions.[9]

Her other publications include “Zoo, or the letter Z, just after Zionism” (NAiM, 2012), “Drone. UNMANNED. Architecture and Security Series” (Co-editor, DPR-Barcelona, 2016), “Retreat. UNMANNED. Architecture and Security Series” (Co-editor, DPR-Barcelona, 2020), “Spaces of Conflict” issue for Footprint, TU Delft Architecture Theory Journal (Co-editor, JAP SAM Books, 2017)and “UN Peace Missions in Urban Environments and the Legacy of UNMIL” (FAST, CIC-NYU, 2019).

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Casale . Rocky . Malkit Shoshan on the Architecture of Diplomacy . SURFACE . 23 April 2023 . 25 July 2016.
  2. Web site: Faculty: Malkit Shoshan . Harvard University Graduate School of Design . 23 April 2023.
  3. Web site: People . V2 . 23 April 2023.
  4. Web site: About Us . Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory FAST . 23 April 2023.
  5. Web site: Madsen . Deane . 2015-04-27 . Erik L’Heureux Wins 2015 Harvard GSD Wheelwright Prize . Architect Magazine.
  6. Web site: Valencia . Nicolas . Malkit Shoshan on How the City is a Shared Ground for the Instruments of War and Peace . ArchDaily . 17 May 2016 . 23 April 2023.
  7. Web site: Harrouk . Christele . UAE / Wetland Wins the Golden Lion for Best National Participation at the 2021 Venice Biennale . ArchDaily . 23 April 2023 . 30 August 2021.
  8. Web site: Huisman . Jana . The most beautiful book in the world by Jana Huisman . Atlas of the Conflict . 23 April 2023 . March 13, 2011.
  9. Web site: BLUE: Architecture of UN Peacekeeping Missions . Actar Publishers . 23 April 2023.