This talk begins from the urban and everyday realities of Palestine, where spatial and social practices are shaped by overlapping colonial, institutional, epistemic, and social conditions. Whether through representations produced by external academic and development institutions, or through the import of models from elsewhere, the question of “translation” remains central.

Translation here is not treated as a neutral transfer of language or meaning, but as a political and epistemological act, one that moves knowledge systems and frameworks, with their own histories, circumstances and origins from one context to another.

What happens when frameworks and methods travel across fields and geographies?

When does translation shift from enabling understanding to restructuring reality, shaping subjectivities, and redefining what is politically possible?

And where is the practitioner, researcher, or architect situated within these processes?
To what extent do we recognize ourselves as translators, and are we aware of the assumptions and implications carried in each act of translation?

Rather than offering answers, this talk reflects on translation as a method of producing knowledge and reality, through examples from the Palestinian context, where architecture, politics, and knowledge are deeply entangled within an ongoing colonial condition.

The talk will be held in Arabic. To register, please fill out the form here.

Omar Hmidat: a PhD researcher in human geography at Newcastle University in the UK, with a focus on colonial necropolitics within the frameworks of law, history, and grassroots society. A former filmmaker and long-time volunteer in social service work in Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank. His current work engages translation as a methodology for knowledge production and a tool for rethinking its underpinnings.