Identities of Past and Present: Conservation and its Consequences

Abstract

This thesis explores the concept of “Radical Indigenism,” outlined by Julia Watson, as a critique of traditional notions of cultural heritage and preservation in landscape architecture. To investigate this concept, the project is situated in a reflooded area within the Mesopotamian Marshes called Chibayish. It creates an agricultural network that designs an interconnected cultural system enabling productive practices to support the native Marsh Arab community known as the Ma’dan. The project imagines an alternative retooling of flows in the landscape, where it participates in the conception of a new community network. It advocates for the projective potentials of bottom-up productive technologies positioning indigenous Ma’dan philosophies within new, hybridized infrastructures. The sites act as infrastructural prototypes that can meaningfully shape the ground for water and soil remediation, plant distribution, and knowledge production. More broadly, the project explores the dichotomies of preserving cultural landscapes and identities with present social and climatic pressures.