Akkaz ![]()
Collective
Publications
About
info.akkaz@gmail.com
@akkaz.collective
Akkaz Collective is a test kitchen for alternative histories, oral histories, urban studies, ecology, speculative futures, and critical theory.
info.akkaz@gmail.com
@akkaz.collective
Contributors —
Aziz Motawa
May Alkharafi
Sara AlZeer
Maryam Mohammed Nada Abu Daqer
Malak Al Suwaihel Hamad Al Mujeem Fatima Nikhadar
Ali Milad
Mohammed Al Mohanna
Aziz Motawa
May Alkharafi
Sara AlZeer
Maryam Mohammed Nada Abu Daqer
Malak Al Suwaihel Hamad Al Mujeem Fatima Nikhadar
Ali Milad
Mohammed Al Mohanna
Project Lead:
Aziz Motawa
Education Lead: Dr. May Alkharafi
Aziz Motawa
Education Lead: Dr. May Alkharafi
THE MAP IS NOT THE TERRITORY
Throughout this collaborative publication, Akkaz collective focuses on areas in Kuwait’s geographic and geological scape through expeditious and detailed referenced research accompanied with images and maps. Such areas include; Sulaibikhat, Doha, Ras ‘Ushairij, Umm Al-Namil, and Shuwaikh.
Challenging the conventional structure of a research document, oral histories and the efforts of local journalists precede any didactic, mostly Western textual introduction/perception to a Kuwait Bay.
Following Kuwait’s Sulaibikhat and Doha coastlines (Kuwait Bay) this research-based and associated visual project retraces these isolated and misused spaces while unearthing the historical and social underpinnings of how these landscapes were and continue to be shaped.
This analogous document of research—comparable to the contextual structure and organization of the visual exhibition aforementioned in this document’s introduction—is also divided into three consecutive, overlapping concentric tiers:
Throughout this document on the neglected geographies dispersed across Kuwait Bay, Akkaz Collective’s intention is to emphasize a counter-strategy—one that excavates and platforms the local histories of these peripheral locations that have yet to be recorded or acknowledged from a systemized and largely Westernized academe.
Throughout this collaborative publication, Akkaz collective focuses on areas in Kuwait’s geographic and geological scape through expeditious and detailed referenced research accompanied with images and maps. Such areas include; Sulaibikhat, Doha, Ras ‘Ushairij, Umm Al-Namil, and Shuwaikh.
Challenging the conventional structure of a research document, oral histories and the efforts of local journalists precede any didactic, mostly Western textual introduction/perception to a Kuwait Bay.
Following Kuwait’s Sulaibikhat and Doha coastlines (Kuwait Bay) this research-based and associated visual project retraces these isolated and misused spaces while unearthing the historical and social underpinnings of how these landscapes were and continue to be shaped.
This analogous document of research—comparable to the contextual structure and organization of the visual exhibition aforementioned in this document’s introduction—is also divided into three consecutive, overlapping concentric tiers:
- an ecological level or scope where the focus of this research directory lies in the coastal mudflats,
- an industrial level that examines the coastal spaces of Sulaibikhat and Doha as Kuwait's epicenter for water desalination plants and the now abandoned American military camp,
- and a conceptural level, which will be addressed near the end of this document how Akkaz Collective traced patterns and historical significance throughout the geographic triangulation of the now demolished Entertainment City theme park, Doha’s nature reserve, and the newly constructed causeway that bridges the densely populated city to this swampy, neglected geography.
Throughout this document on the neglected geographies dispersed across Kuwait Bay, Akkaz Collective’s intention is to emphasize a counter-strategy—one that excavates and platforms the local histories of these peripheral locations that have yet to be recorded or acknowledged from a systemized and largely Westernized academe.
The Map is Not the Territory
Collaborative publication
Aziz Motawa
Malak Al Suwaihel
Designed by Hamad Al Mujeem
2023
Read Online
Collaborative publication
Aziz Motawa
Malak Al Suwaihel
Designed by Hamad Al Mujeem
2023
Read Online
ALA TARAF LISAN AL’ARD
Exhibited as part of Akkaz Collective’s research project, Ala Taraf Lisan Al’Arth is a visual documentation through the lens of Aziz Motawa capturing the last eight years of his treks along the Doha and Sulaibikhat coastal areas and their interwoven narratives of industry and toxicity that play out in these derelict marshy stretches of Kuwait. Oscillating between dream-like, wanton vignettes and the industrialized corporeality of human intervention, this visual project foregrounds the six East to West water desalination plants and outpours along the northern coastal lines of Kuwait, which frame the abandoned American military camp, and geographic triangulation of the now demolished Entertainment City theme park, Doha’s nature reserve, and the newly constructed causeway that bridges the densely populated city to this swampy, neglected geography.
Aziz’s visuals embody a liminality—a third space—where the natural, industrial, and personal all congeal in the sump and pit of the sewage outpours that populate this geography of mudflats. There is a permeability of boundaries throughout these visuals of concrete, wire, and mudflats that unify these realms in the ebb and flow of the area’s intertidal zones. What remains here is a culmination of fragmented ideas on life and how it settles, how it self-destructs, and how it adapts taken from the perspective of animals native to the mudflats.
Exhibited as part of Akkaz Collective’s research project, Ala Taraf Lisan Al’Arth is a visual documentation through the lens of Aziz Motawa capturing the last eight years of his treks along the Doha and Sulaibikhat coastal areas and their interwoven narratives of industry and toxicity that play out in these derelict marshy stretches of Kuwait. Oscillating between dream-like, wanton vignettes and the industrialized corporeality of human intervention, this visual project foregrounds the six East to West water desalination plants and outpours along the northern coastal lines of Kuwait, which frame the abandoned American military camp, and geographic triangulation of the now demolished Entertainment City theme park, Doha’s nature reserve, and the newly constructed causeway that bridges the densely populated city to this swampy, neglected geography.
Aziz’s visuals embody a liminality—a third space—where the natural, industrial, and personal all congeal in the sump and pit of the sewage outpours that populate this geography of mudflats. There is a permeability of boundaries throughout these visuals of concrete, wire, and mudflats that unify these realms in the ebb and flow of the area’s intertidal zones. What remains here is a culmination of fragmented ideas on life and how it settles, how it self-destructs, and how it adapts taken from the perspective of animals native to the mudflats.
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