1973
Sandi Hilal (°1973, Beit Sahour, PS) is an architect, artist, and educator whose work emerges where architecture, art, and collective life meet. Her practice engages displacement, statelessness, and migration, exploring how learning together, hosting one another, and reclaiming space can become forms of political imagination and collective self determination.
Together with Alessandro Petti, she co directs DAAR, Decolonizing Architecture Art Research. Daar, meaning home in Arabic, is both the conceptual ground and shared life of their political, spatial, and pedagogical explorations. Rooted in long term collaborations, friendships, and communities, DAAR develops artistic, architectural, and educational practices that question dominant understandings of space, citizenship, heritage, and belonging.
Hilal’s key initiatives include The Living Room (Al Madhafah), Ente di Decolonizzazione, The Concrete Tent, Refugee Heritage and Stateless Heritage, The Tree School, and Campus in Camps, a pioneering educational platform based in Dheisheh refugee camp. Most recently, she co initiated DAAS, Decolonizing Architecture Advanced Studies, in Sharjah, a pedagogical platform committed to situated learning and collective research on architecture and decolonization. DAAR’s work has been exhibited internationally and has received numerous awards, including the Golden Lion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale.