For as long as many people can remember, places of safety and comfort remain few and far between in Palestine. Beneath new layers of dust and rubble in Gaza are vestiges of what lay before—buildings and community spaces that are a far cry from the refuge and relative safety that they were originally built to provide.
There still remains a deep concern in Arab nations that Palestine could be reduced to a historical reference, so imagining where to go from here is not easy. But one group taking an innovative approach to this Palestine Collective—a collection of more than 50 architects, designers, creatives and doctors based in the UK, who have come together to work on various projects including ones that have begun to use 3D spatial imagery as a means to reconstruct Palestinian neighbourhoods as they existed before and after the Arab-Israeli war in 1948. By recreating these spaces, the group not only hopes to bring the past to life but also provides a canvas upon which future possibilities can be imagined.
The project undertaken by Palestine Collective is more than just an architectural endeavor; it is a bridge between history, memory, and future aspirations. By employing advanced 3D technology, the architects meticulously recreate the physical landscapes of Palestinian neighbourhoods, enabling viewers to visualize what these areas might have looked like decades ago. This visual exploration serves as a powerful tool for education and remembrance, highlighting the cultural and historical significance of these spaces.
Founded in October 2023 the Palestine Collective was set up by filmmaker and lecturer Mohammed Khizr as a means to create a safe space for people to talk about Palestine, particularly when they were feeling pushback within their professional work environments. Originally started on WhatsApp, before expanding to host regular in-person events, across the UK.
Zain Al-Sharaf Wahbeh is a member of the Collective who has hosted talks during these gatherings, with a focus on restorative efforts guiding the Collective’s ambition.
Enrolled at London’s Royal College Of Art—a university that actively engages in trying to create scholarships for Palestinian students—Wahbeh undertook a module on personal definitions of catastrophe as a first-year graduate project in 2020. She decided to dedicate it to her father’s family who were forced to flee the residential neighbourhood of Al-Manshiya in the north of Jaffa in 1948. As means of cultural exploration Wahbeh decided that she wanted to reconstruct what Al-Manshiya would have looked like before it was destroyed.
“Without any immediate reference points, it was not easy,” says Wahbeh. “Today the area is entirely divorced from the vernacular origins of that Palestinian neighbourhood. In fact, the Hassan Bek Mosque is the only surviving building that predates 1948.”
Wahbeh was able to determine which methodology would be suited to the reconstruction with the help of her mother, who sought out a former resident of Al-Manshiya—Dr Ahmed Sharkas—on a previous trip to the Jordanian capital, Amman.
Sharkas had lived in the Al-Manshiya neighbourhood in the early 1940s, until he was forced into exile in Jordan. It was through Wahbeh’s conversations with Sharkas about his memories of where and how he lived that led to the first reconstruction via 3D images of the area and floor plans of his home in Al-Manshiya. Recreating something that has completely disappeared is as revolutionary as it acts as a template for other architects and creatives to imagine.
Another student taken by this approach was Madeleine. While studying for her post-graduate degree in Experimental Design in February 2024, Madeleine decided to start an exploration of her Palestinian roots through “spatial memory”, something that had for a long time intrigued her.
Up to this point, any previous investigation into the Palestinian side of her family tree had been unsuccessful, something she describes as “almost like mythology.” For a long time she remained curious about her lost family ties, until she discovered a Facebook group that had the same last name in Arabic. She joined the group and speculatively messaged about the potential of being related, and then went to sleep.
“I woke up six hours later and I had a message that said ‘Hello Maddie, welcome to the family’,” she recalls. “Getting to know them allowed me to learn deeper things about my Palestinian-Armenian heritage.” Something that would then inspire her to create a VR experience titled ‘Stories From My Grandmother’s House.’
The homely experience is based (as the name alludes to) on her grandmother’s house in Haifa in the 1930s. She used her research of her extended family’s house in Nazareth as a reference guide—from the wallpaper to the tiles—to reimagine what it would have looked like. The detailing includes a piano, backgammon set, a teapot, and beautiful vases and pictures in the room. Each room brings us into a different story such as how Madeleine’s grandfather survived the Armenian genocide or gives us a history of how travellers used to arrive on the shores of the Mediterranean coastal town of Akka. There is certainly value in reimagining of old Palestinian towns, as Madeliene does and the VR experience that she has created is an immersive treat.
In early June, 2024, Palestine Collective hosted an exhibition at ‘Host Of Leyton’ in east London. At the event both Wahbeh and Madeleine’s works were on display alongside other activities such as poetry reading and workshops. A hundred-or-so people attended over the two days, most of who were fascinated to experience the visceral aspect of the 3D mapping projects, with some attendees having “strong emotional reactions to the VR experience,” recalls Madeleine. “Some people even started crying, which was something I didn’t expect.”
“I think it gave people a chance to deeply reflect on their own backgrounds,” says Wahbeh. “In the diaspora, many people are looking for that ‘point of connection’, wanting to know more about where they’re from.”
Wahbeh also received a positive reception for her efforts in collecting artefacts for the exhibition to help viewers imagine Palestine domesticity from “seemingly mundane elements… including a key to a door knob to a piece of joinery, a piece of furniture and kitchen cutlery.” Believing it necessary, Wahbeh explains how she wanted to set a precedent for future exhibitions and that the objects weren’t “mundane to people who have been separated and exiled from their homes.” Despite the challenges of sourcing the items and curating the pieces together, Wahbeh hopes this level of meticulous detail will set a precedent for future exhibitions.
For Madeleine, the challenges she faced were in the project itself and becoming “obsessed” with key details to the point where she wanted to dig deeper and understand what the coast of Akka would have looked like in the 1700s despite knowing it was “an impossible task”.
Since the exhibition, the Palestine Collective has taken on more responsibility with young people taking active roles for the first time and creative outlets such as poetry nights and film screenings. At the heart of this all though is raising awareness in spite of potential backlash or fear of losing out on future work.
“The aim of the Palestine Collective is to remind the industry and the British people to be brave,” says Khizr, who vehemently believes that people’s personal opinions shouldn’t have an impact on their work.
“When it’s part of your heritage, it is not a choice,” says Madeleine. “It’s like if someone asked you to pretend that a part of you didn’t exist or, if you have mixed heritage, that one part of you doesn’t have the same rights as the other one.”
However, it is through innovative architectural projects that the Palestine Collective has shown that even in today’s troubled climate, hope must survive, and one way of ensuring that is to imagine a future.