To secure the static is an impossible feat. It is almost inevitable that a once pink flower shop, should  now be painted white. Or the contents of a home, replaced with cubicles and suit – wearing men. Newness can be a devastating thing.

This personal essay is an exploration of self through surroundings. What started out as an urgent documentation, slipped into casual observation. There is no comparison between what once was and now isn’t, simply a statement of what currently is. 
 

Collecting fragments to celebrate the existing and the nearly extinct, salvaging what remains of past significance. I’ve come to realise that change, despite its unfriendliness, is not an enemy, but a powerful presence and a familiar figure that we must tip our hat to.  
There’s a certain beauty in the decay as well. In things that have already moved past the point of being for general use, moving onto a strange space of simply being. 
 I believe that everything between the evolution, devolution and olution of the area is substantial.

This project is an attempt at coming to terms with the notion that my neighbourhood has changed and grown, but so have I. And that is a fact to be accepted, rather than antagonized, despite the difficulty of remaining stoic, while watching a hole replace a house.

2018, Darat Al Funun