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ABOUT
   
By day, Nabil Al-Kinani is a built-environment professional with a keen interest in urbanism, placemaking, sustainable development and place vision.

By night, he is a cultural producer that uses creative practice to deliver changemaking projects that draw focus on the relationship between spaces and stories.

Other strands of his work includes the exploration of spatial politics, identity, culture and migration. 

His areas of expertise lie in people and places — exploring questions such as:

Who designs space? Who has access to newly-created space? What’s the cultural impact of these newly-created spaces? Who are new spaces being built for? Who is affected by newly-created space? What are the narratives that must be preserved when new spaces are being created?

Talks, Reports, Workshops & Lectures

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CASTLES





The ‘ends’ is an area of social housing, where the landlord is commonly the local authority or a housing association (not-for-profit organisations offering housing to low-income communities). In most cases, residents are charged weekly or monthly rent which is often paid for through government welfare.

In recent years, the ‘ends’ has repeatedly been characterised as uninhabitable antisocial spaces. Claimed to be disempowering and ugly – the perceived aesthetic of the ‘ends’ forms the bedrock of the argument for redevelopment of the ‘ends’, and redevelopment is nearly always followed by gentrification.

Using photography, Castles seeks to offer an alternative characterisation of the ‘ends’:

  1. The ‘ends’ are modern-day castles.
  2. These modern-day castles are inhabited by kings and queens.
  3. And the ‘ends’, along with its inhabitants, are nothing short of beautiful.

This photo-essay is intended to showcase the majesty of inner-city social housing estates across the city. Providing commentary on perceived beauty, whilst touching on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of value & taste.

(work in progress...)