BEIRUT: Ieva Saudargaite Douaihi
Workshop
Thursday, April 16, 2026
3:00 pm
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"BEIRUT: Seeing Before, Looking After" is a presentation by Ieva Saudargaite Douaihi that traces her long-term artistic and architectural engagement with the city of Beirut. Bringing together years of photographic documentation and material research, the talk reflects on practices of attentive looking—before and after rupture—within a landscape shaped by layered histories and ongoing instability. Moving between image-making and spatial thinking, Douaihi examines how Beirut’s urban fabric, as well as villages across Lebanon, bear the marks of destruction, endurance, and transformation. The presentation unfolds as both a personal and critical meditation on witnessing: on the difficulty of seeing amid loss, and on the role of artistic practice in holding memory, absence, and the fragile possibility of renewal.
Ieva Saudargaite Douaihi is a transdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of photography, architecture, and material research. Rooted in an ongoing exploration of vernacular landscapes, memory, and overlooked ecologies, her practice spans image-making, spatial interventions, and hybrid objects composed of found objects, natural matter and household materials. Drawing on her background in architecture and a deep sensitivity to ecological and social entanglements, she engages with overlooked spaces and slow processes of growth, decay, and adaptation. Douaihi studied architecture at the Lebanese American University in Byblos and École Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris; she grew up between Lithuania, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon. In 2022, she established Takeover, an artist-led project space in Beirut. She is also a member of the Lebanese photography collective Collectif ١٢٠٠ In 2021, she co-founded Digital Fountain, an online platform for photography from Lebanon. In 2021, she received the Boghossian Foundation Award for photography and the ADPP mentorship award.
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Prof Dr Ines Weizman
Professor of History and Theory of Architecture
Head of PhD Programme
School of Architecture
Royal College of Art
Kensington Gore, London
SW7 2EU
ines.weizman@rca.ac.uk
School of Architecture, Royal College of Art
Postgraduate Research (PGR) Programme