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



LINKS
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TALKS, REPORTS, WORKSHOPS & LECTURES



EXPLORING HOOD FUTURISM // MAIA GROUP
MAY 2023

As part of MAIA’s Radical Imagination Lab: Space in the Black Imagination, we hosted an exploratory workshop on ‘Privatise the Mandem; Exploring Hood Futurism’. We looked at themes such as our relationship to land, preserving the Ends, collective ownership and how we get ourselves and our descendants free.

PRIVATISE THE MANDEM READING GROUP // THE MOSAIC ROOMS
JAN 2023

A reading group and discussion around Privatise the Mandem (2022), a proposal to resist gentrification. Arguing the necessity of collective ownership of the ends; social housing estates as well as details the consequences of delivering on the vision.

WE ARE HERE // LONDON DESIGN FESTIVAL X SOUND ADVICE
SEP 2022

‘We Are Here’ was an event organised by Sound Advice for the London Design Festival, taking over the Rio Cinema during London Design Festival 2022 to celebrate migrant voices in the urban and cultural realm.

"THE G WORD" DEVELOPMENT FOR WHO?! // THE ADVOCACY ACADEMY
AUG 2022

An Open House event for South London residents, community groups, and institutions to come together and meet, talk, and organise around the topic of gentrification.

REGENERATIVE NEIGHBOURHOODS FESTIVAL // CIVIC SQUARE
JUL 2022

A panel discussion with Craig Pinkney and Sham Murad exploring some of the themes of “Privatise The Mandem” and how they resonate with their own work in and around Birmingham.

LANGUAGE BARRIERS // NEW ARCHITECTURE WRITERS
JUL 2022

A live colloquium hosted at the Zaha Hadid Foundation. The theme of the colloquium aims to explore the ideological and material factors shaping architectural discourse: the way we discuss buildings, the tools we use to do so, and the conditions under which such writing is produced.

FROM [MIDDLE] SOUTH EAST TO NORTH WEST REPORT // MUSEUM OF LONDON 
JUN 2022

The ‘From [Middle] South East to North West’ project forms part the London Eats programme, aimed at mapping Syrian refugee families’ travels and movements through the city in search of ingredients from ‘home’. The mapping exercise documented their travels through the collection of ephemera, photography, oral histories and illustrations. The collection was accompanied by an article written for the Museum during Ramadan 2023.(www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/ramadan-london-iftar-food)

DOUGHNUT ECONOMICS STUDIO DAY // CIVIC SQUARE X PARTICIPATORY CITY FOUNDATION
JUN 2022

Doughnut Economics Peer to Peer Learning Journey Studio Day at Everyone’s Warehouse, where cohorts of people from across the UK and the globe were building their collective knowledge, confidence and ideas to take the principles for regenerative economics off the page, and turn them into transformative action in their homes, streets, and neighbourhoods.

BBC 1XTRA LIVE TALKS WITH RICHIE BRAVE // BBC RADIO 1XTRA
JUN 2022

Speech show on BBC Radio 1Xtra hosted by Richie Brave. I was invited to discuss “Privatise the Mandem” live on air, as part of the shows theme of self-reliance. The show broadcasted from 9pm to 10pm on the 5th June 2022. (//www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017twq)

SPEAKERS CORNER @ THE BIG LUNCH // CIVIC SQUARE
JUN 2022

The Speakers Corner formed part of The Big Lunch at Civic Square in Birmingham. I was invited to discuss “Privatise the Mandem”, specifically covering how we can think, dream and strategise collectively for positive change.

BUILDING ECOLOGIES, NOT HEIRARCHIES // MAIA GROUP
JUN 2022

A conversation with three practitioners who build radical new infrastructures which tend to their communities - Jack Ky Tan, Joon-Lynn Goh, and Amhara Spence. The talk explored possible ways of organising, mobilising and reimagining decentralised structures. 

THE EFFECTS OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON WORKING CLASS LONDONERS // MUSEUM OF LONDON X KING’S COLLEGE LONDON
NOV 2021

King’s College London and the Museum of London were undertaking a research project to better understand how working class Londoners have experienced the Covid-19 pandemic period. The project seeked to hear about their experiences around the themes of work, learning and connections with friends and family. Subsequently, the Museum published a report named: ‘Museums, Class and the Pandemic’, in December 2022 (www.museumoflondon.org.uk/collections/about-our-collections/enhancing-our-collections/collecting-covid/museums-class-and-pandemic)

RACE & SPACE: SPECULATIVE FUTURES // EYESORE X AFTERPARTI X UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
NOV 2021

Forming part of UCL’s curriculum Zewolde et al. (2020), ‘Race’ and Space: What is ‘race’ doing in a nice field like the built environment? London: The Bartlett, UCL Faculty of the Built Environment. The future generates the possibility of different spatial trajectories, this workshop explored Afro-futurism, cyberpunk, post-colonial urban futures and decolonial theory. 

MIGRANT EXPERIENCES OF FOOD & DRINK IN LDN // MUSEUM OF LONDON DOCKLANDS
JUL 2021

Consultation and facilitation of workshops in Arabic that explore the theme of food and drink in London with a cohort of migrant families from Lewisham and Greenwich. Forming part of the Museum of London: Curating London programme.

MULTISTORY* LECTURE SERIES: FUTURE // CANTERBURY SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
NOV 2019

MULTISTORY* is a student and alumni led guest lecture programme series at Canterbury School of Architecture, University for the Creative Arts, seeking to invite architects, designers, writers, curators, photographers and artists to speak about their work. The Freedom & Balance art college was invited to provide a lecture on story-telling and how it shapes our inner city spaces through design and culture.

TO RULE & WRITE // #MERKY BOOKS POP-UP
NOV 2019 

Stormzy’s Penguin Random House imprint #Merky Books had teamed up with Beats by Dre to open the #Merky Books pop-up shop at the new Beats Residency space in Shoreditch, London. The Freedom & Balance art college was invited to talk about the Authors of the Estate project.