Midway across the Emirate of Sharjah lies an uninhabited settlement of houses with a mosque known as Al Madam, built in the 1970s to settle the region’s nomadic people in a modern (2015/23), designed by Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti, who work together as the Decolonizing Architecture Art Research (DAAR) collective. The full-scale replica of a canvas refugee tent, complete with a sloping roof and open flap in the rear, is recreated in a solid-wooden frame and covered in a concrete-like applique. The structure stands like a monument to the millions of lives lost through displacement and in transit, with echoes of those migrants forced into exile due to the climate crisis.
