Dialogue with 10 Nabrawy | Malak Yacout

Townhouse First Floor Gallery
Opening 7 pm, April 29th, 2018
Dialogue with 10 Nabrawy is a research project examining the language of architecture through a series of dialogical exchanges. Artist Malak Yacout identifies the ways in which individual and communal interactions inform and, in turn, are informed by physical space. An open set of texts comprised of different - perhaps contradictory - viewpoints creates the discursive space from which the site can begin to speak for itself.

By introducing herself as a curious student with an attachment to the building 10 Nabrawy Street, Yacout asks linguistic scholars, architects, and historians if the building could potentially have its own language. Yacout takes out advertisements in Linguistic, Sociological, and Scientific journals as well as local and international newspapers. She further incites public actions such as a petition to officially recognize a new language of sites.

A collected body of text is accompanied by physical interruptions and audible interventions in the interior facade. Through many layers of research, Yacout posits dialogue as a philosophy, and lays bare the conditions from which a new language can emerge.

Following a partial demolition and two years of construction, 10 Nabrawy re-opens with a deeply historical, sociological, and linguistic excavation. As the primary home of the Townhouse Gallery for over 20 years, 10 Nabrawy has been the subject of many significant global conversations.

Yacout uses 10 Nabrawy as a touchstone to posit semiological and architectural interventions: If they were permitted to speak, what memories would sites testify to; what anecdotes would they tell?