A Temporary Collective Memory - The Design Museum Zaatari

Challenging socio-spatial relations in Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan through proposing an interactive, unsettled museum spaces.

Focusing on the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan which hosts 80 000 refugees, the project aims to present an opportunity to imagine new futures and social scenarios to life in the camp. Calling the space a museum, it is not undertaken to box it off but as a way of making it ‘official’ and communicating the value of fluid processes, innovation and creativity already embedded in the community. The knowledge production element of the museum also offers an opportunity for capacity building and informal learning which could bridge some of the educational gaps caused by displacement. This type of museum moves away from the traditional understanding of museums, in order to question and explore how museological processes and design can serve ever-increasing spaces of displacement and the communities that reside there. This tool does not aim to impose its strategy on individuals, but rather to facilitatequalified choices of the community to establish more sustainable socio-spatial alternatives.

Time

Summer 2017

Location

Zaatari Refugee Camp

Jordan

Team

Jana Alaraj

Laschandré Coetzee