Dr Mohamad Hafeda

Hafeda is an artist, designer, writer and academic. His work employs art and architecture practices as research methods to negotiate the politics of urban space, focussing on the issues of borders, refuge, displacement, representation and spatial rights. Through this, Hafeda engages with communities to produce counter representations and spatial alternatives that span urban interventions, media representations, art installations and writings.

Hafeda is a Reader at the Leeds School of Architecture. He is a founding partner of Febrik, a collaborative platform for participatory art and design research working on the dynamics of urban space in relation to unrepresented groups. He taught architecture and interior design at Chelsea College of Arts, Westminster University, London Metropolitan University, Lebanese American University and American University of Beirut. Hafeda holds a PhD degree in Architectural Design from the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.

Hafeda’s interdisciplinary, practice-led research across the fields of urban studies, art and tactical practices of resistence is presented in his most recent book, Negotiating Conflict in Lebanon (Bloomsbury, 2019) and his film Sewing Borders, commissioned by Ashkal Alwan for Video Works (2017), the latter of which was selected for the International Film Festival Rotterdam IFFR (2018) in the Bright Future category, and Queer Lisboa International Film Festival (2018). Hafeda was also the co-author of Creative Refuge (Tadween, 2014) and Action of Street / Action of Room: A Directory of Public Actions (Serpentine Galleries, 2016), and the co-editor of Narrating Beirut from its Borderlines (Heinrich Boll Foundation, 2011).

Febrik works on site-specific projects and collaborates with local communities, NGOs and cultural institutions. Their projects include residencies and exhibitions at the Serpentine Galleries, South London Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, Mosaic Rooms, and Architecture Biennale Rotterdam.