Note: The text here is part of a forthcoming book about the Takhayali project, in order to provide the needed information about the methods, elements and tools that were utilized in the process until the book is released. For citation please contact the authors.

Team, contributors:

During the in-depth interviews[1] that we conducted with 25 women that live in Ein Qiniya, they expounded on various dimensions of their everyday lives and the problems and challenges they face. Upon the completion of this phase of data co-generation, we decided that we needed to build on these conversations using other techniques that would enable a less interpretive understanding of their narratives and the kinds of changes they considered necessary to improve their livelihoods. We wanted a medium that would help amplify their voices, enabling them to be heard, not cited as passive subjects of research, but as agents and co-producers, capable of defining their needs and proposing solutions.

Consequently, we decided to employ the methods of research by design and imagination as activities of knowledge production that trespass differences in education, age and socio-economic conditions. We decided to frame this intervention into the far future, to sideline the shackles imposed by immediate, logical, or pragmatic concerns. To avoid disadvantages that may arise due to variations in verbal-expression or technical competence, and to create a relatively more level playing-field, we decided to employ artistic mediums. Below we explain the structure, components, tools, meetings, and the method of recruiting the narrators in the twenty imagination sessions that we conducted between September 2019 and February 2020. The results are captured in the set of twenty imagined alternative masterplans featured on the landing page of this website.

As the in-depth interviews were not received well by several of the women (some were disturbed by the amount of time consumed, some found the questions intrusive), we took into account that not all of them would agree to a second meeting and therefore downscaled our expectation to only twenty of them participating in this imagination exercise of producing masterplans. Subsequently, we prepared a list of those women who were interviewed, were welcoming, and overall we felt interacted well with Takhayali, and commenced with conducting the imagination sessions. A pilot was conducted with our team member from Ein Qiniya, Wala’ L'malah on 2 September 2019, in her apartment. As we proceeded some of our interviewees agreed and others declined to take part. Therefore, we expanded the group to include other women from Ein Qiniya with whom we had not conducted an in-depth interview, but who had got to know about our research through their participation in some of the thematic workshops we had organized and had shown interest in collaborating. In one case, instead of us contacting her, a woman approached Mai requesting to participate in making a masterplan.

The group participating in Takhayali Ein Qiniya masterplans was very diverse: their ages ranged from 20 to 60 years, some of whom are mothers. A few had obtained a higher degree, yet most did not have the opportunity to complete their school education. Several narrators are laborers in family-run income generating activities (e.g. farming, shepherding, bee-keeping, the village’s café), with others employed in other occupations: one worked in her own beauty salon in the village, one in the public sector, and one does embroidery. A few were undergraduate students at the time, while a number were housewives. While some are, to an extent, economically secure, others are vulnerable. Over the multi-year research process, Mai developed a personal relationship with several of them.

Our team changed in composition between the start of this collaborative imagination exercise in winter 2018/19 and its exhibition on 4 September 2022, on the porch of Im Nizar L’malah. We want to note our gratitude to former team members Wala’ L’malah, Ala’ Fayyaleh, and Amal Juma for their instrumental role in conceiving and planning the process for creating the imaginary Takhayali Ein Qiniya masterplans.

Takhayali utilized the space of the research and the medium of intuitive design (as opposite to taught and rule-based), in order to connect the dots between what each interlocutor expressed during the in-depth interview (life conditions, struggles, relationships, love, potentials, aspirations, connections to land), and the kinds of spaces that she perceived as stepping stones for the desired future. The Takhayali sessions were designed with the aim to expand the spaces of exchange, connection, criticism of built and unbuilt surroundings, and sought to reassess both the perceptions of solutions as well as the tools at disposal through constructive conversations.

Noteworthy, during the early stages of the research in 2018, we learned that Ein Qiniya and tangent parts of north-western Ramallah did not have a masterplan. Seeing the pattern of expansion of the city, having followed the development of the masterplan for alQrain’a basin and alReehan neighborhood in the early 2010s[2] and similar steps in several villages along the Ramallah-Birzeit axis, and with the Ring Road infrastructural project; it was evident that we were on a count down until the Palestinian Ministry of Local Government ordered the creation of a masterplan for Ein Qiniya (which has a population of about 1,000 people).

We started work on the imagined masterplans in the fall of 2019. In fall 2021, the Ministry of Local Government took the move we expected with requesting from the village council to start the lengthy process to create a masterplan for the village. In summer 2022, we set up an exhibition of the 20 masterplans to show them to the community with village council representatives attending. The exhibit was received positively. In winter/spring 2024 we reviewed and provided commentary on the “Diagnosis Report for Ein Qiniya” to the village council’s masterplan committee, in spring 2025 we were consulted about the preliminary proposal that was presented to them by the hired design firm, and we remain at the disposal of the latter for support when they request it.

Based on our experience in conducting the in-depth interviews, we sketched potential scenarios for how the imagination sessions could play out and the various possible tools we could use. First, it was clear from the outset that these imagination sessions had to be conducted individually to avoid having some ideas by shy or less outspoken narrators coerced, shifted, or silenced by the stronger-characters in the group. Second, as we wanted the activity to be interactive and engaging, whereby the narrators drew their personal visions with minimal intervention from our team, we initially considered the option of building models from play-doh. However, given that this would require substantial time which the narrators are often unable to afford, and given the obstacles to mobility, whether theirs or those of the team,[3] this idea was abandoned.

We also considered the option of producing short films that the narrators would record with their cell-phones to be combined with a narration that they would write, a kind of a story or accompanying statement that would tell how they would change the landscape their cameras were capturing. However, this idea would require walking around the village and filming, which would draw interrogation from others, and therefore we expected some of the narrators to reject this option. In addition, not all of them had phones that were suitable for the purpose, and many would have faced difficulty in drafting a story or statement that would accompany the footage. Not only would this have required substantial technical post-production work, but this, in turn could compromise the author’s role in the creation of their narrative. Hence, we abandoned this idea as well.

On the question on whether narrators would be able to work independently on an expression of their vision(s), we concluded that the heavy daily life-routines of chores and care responsibilities, would make it difficult for many to conduct what in effect was a sort of homework. Additionally, we estimated that some stimulation was highly likely to be needed at the beginning of the process, if not longer. Therefore, we decided that the presence of one of our team members was necessary. With this in mind, we ultimately decided to use two mediums of expression: hand-sketching imposed on an aerial photograph (to secure a vision for the overall area of the masterplan) as well as photo-collages placed atop images of various sites in and around Ein Qiniya (to secure site-specific visions). On the one hand, this approach requires simple, available, mobile equipment (papers, coloring pens, laptop), while on the other, it has the potential to produce an expression of the ideas in a manageable timeframe and in privacy.

Based on the above, and considering (a) the fact that not all households have access to the internet as well as (b) the need to conduct the exercise in a reasonable amount of time and help the narrators to concentrate on their ideas rather than searching through the millions of images available online, we prepared a digital library of images. This catalogue of images included all items that we thought might come up in the conversation on re-imagining their spaces – buildings of all sizes sorts and from various geographies, elements of public spaces (lanterns, benches, plant pots, dumpsters, fountains, swings, slides, open space gaming and sports installations), natural elements (trees, shrubs, water bodies, animals, birds), human figures (walking, sitting, biking, dancing, a.o.), vehicles of all shapes, solar panels, windmills, fuel stations, street and building signs, as well as a page that showed a variety of urban design forms (e.g. a Palestinian urban neighborhood and a village, a view of the port in Acre, the Cerda blocks in Barcelona, a view of Dubai, an ancient village on a hill in Italy). This library was arranged into a printed catalogue that Mai put into the hands of the narrators, as described below.

Last, as we were aware that some post-production editorial work would be necessary (that would be conducted by our team in the absence of the narrators), and since we wanted to be true to the opinions of the narrators, we audio-recorded the sessions in order to be able to accurately recollect their thoughts, stories and ideas. In 2022, while preparing the exhibition for the Takhayali community, these recordings became the source from which we put together the quotations that accompany each of the 20 masterplans.

During deliberations on how to structure and facilitate the process such that they would be true to the ideas of the narrators, we decided that each imagination session should revolve around three components: a verbal component, a visual component, and a transitional component between the two. All sessions were conducted by our team member, Mai alBattat, who had also conducted the extensive in-depth interviews during the preceding year.[4] The imagination sessions were mostly one-on-one conversations that lasted on average between three to five hours. With most of the narrators the activity was conducted in one session, but with a few Mai returned for a second session.[5] The vast majority of the meetings were held at the narrator’s home, but one person favored conducting it at Wala’ place and two others at a café in Ramallah.

The verbal component constituted the warm-up activity and aimed at creating a scenario between the narrator and Mai who employed conversations that drew from her knowledge of the former. Mai asked thought-provoking questions and showed the narrator printed images. The goal was to stimulate thinking beyond the harsh realities of the narrator’s everyday life, which required deconstructing concepts, transcending norms and what is considered a ‘given’. Imagining or re-imaging physical spaces is not a quotidian, familiar activity. Therefore, this component of the sessions, which on average took about 45 minutes, started with recollecting the in-depth interview from about a year earlier. Then Mai would briefly explain the agenda, and show the narrator a copy of the book “Lens in Bloom: A Photography Journal” which was produced by women living in the Tianshan community in Shanghai.[6]

The photobook comprises images of the precarious realities and everyday elements of joy, compassion and perseverance in the neighbourhood in Shanghai in which the GenUrb research was conducted. In most cases, the narrators commented on the images of their Tianshan ‘counterparts’, without asking particular questions. Following this, Mai explained the difference between the photography journal, which captured realities as they are, and the Takhayali [imagine] Ein Qiniya project in which we employ imagination as a tool to build hope and to actively think about and collect ideas for solutions to the problems they are facing in Ein Qiniya.

To initiate the activity of imagining, Mai then asked the narrator about a place that she would like to or has visited, or has heard of or saw on television or any other medium. A place that made her feel happiness, or she would like to live in, or has a particular memory of or associated to it. These questions then branched into other topics and horizons. Some narrators went on to describe particular moments, others described particular places, and some described nonmaterial components of space such as climate and social dynamics. In addition to helping the narrators in expressing their thoughts and dreams, these conversations aided identifying the issues each of them perceived as important, and helped orient following questions to reflect on these aspects thus moving along with the process of reimagining and articulating the kind of spaces each one desired in her neighborhood in Ein Qiniya.

The second step in preparing the narrators for collaging and sketching out their imaginations was the transition component, which on average took about 15-20 minutes. It served to smoothen the transition of narrators from the first component, in which words were the medium for puzzling and expressing imaginations, to the third one where visual elements come into play in the expression and communication of these imaginations. Mai shared ten printed pictures of villages, towns and cities from around the world that varied from ancient and contemporary, from vernacular in their development to those following stricter planning grids. After flipping through these Mai asked the narrator to choose the one that captures her attention most and to explain why. This discussion was followed by returning to the other nine images and engaging in conversation about what they felt about each of them. This component helped narrators situate themselves in relation to the key terms and issues at hand, articulating what each perceived as desirable and undesirable elements. This component was short for some, longer for others, and proved essential for easing those who were less inclined to speak.

The third visual component of the session was composed of two parts with a focus on reimagining Ein Qiniya. On average it took about 60-90 minutes. In the first and longer part, Mai laid two differently-scaled aerial images of the area in front of the narrator; one zoomed in at the built center and some of the surrounding landscape, and the other larger showing the entire area of the village including the agricultural and undeveloped landscape. The progression in this part depended on the course of earlier conversations, and how each narrator interacted with the process of (re)imagining the space. Some immediately delved into describing how they would change the spaces of Ein Qiniya. With others, Mai had to prompt the process by asking about the daily problems that they mentioned they face,[7] then discussing possible solutions for specific places and expanding to other areas in and around Ein Qiniya – the valleys, the Israeli colony overlooking the village, etc. This section employed sketching and adding stickers to the tracing papers toping the aerial images, and it produced what can be considered as the narrator’s masterplan for Ein Qiniya in which each of the 20 women described what spaces, functions and establishments they wished to have, where, and the relationships between them. One of the resulting sketched masterplans can be seen below. 

In the second part the focus was on the act of detailed (re)imagination of a specific site that each narrator selected, with some choosing two or three sites. For this we used collaging as the medium. To allow flexibility and scalability, and given considerations of limited time, the collages were produced on Mai’s laptop using Photoshop. After choosing the site they wished to (re)design, narrators chose the elements that they desired from the list of ‘Catalogue of Elements’. They would point where to place the chosen elements on the picture of the site, and instructed Mai in editing them.

As mentioned earlier, the team had prepared a digital library to cater to the varying tastes of the narrators, and we arranged the items into a printed ‘Catalogue of Elements’ that included buildings, elements of public spaces, natural elements, human figures, vehicles, signs, etc. Although one can argue that this catalogue of over 200 elements limited the scope of the women’s imaginations, it is also true that without this tool many women would have found it more difficult to perform the activity and express their visions into a capturable, communicable form. Besides the technical considerations that led to the decision to employ this tool,[8] flipping through the pages of the catalogue – which parallels flipping through an album of pictures – is a familiar action that gave narrators ease and confidence in performing this (to most) unfamiliar task of reimagining and ‘designing’ their life spaces, beyond their own four walls. Noteworthy is that during this process this catalogue increased in size as some narrators who had internet searched for elements of specific designs that they wished to use (e.g. a particular kind of street light, a stone wall), with these additions being employed by others in following sessions.

On another level, our team had initially planned that the site on which the collage was to be undertaken would be passed on a walk that the narrator and Mai would undertake. We thought that along the walk conversations about the spaces they are passing would take place. By the time of the fourth session however, we noticed that there was unease and a slight displeasure regarding having to leave home and conduct an exercise in public. The walk increased the time of the session by some 35-45 minutes, it was winter, and it weighed heavily on the attention- and energy-span of narrators. The walk proved to add unnecessary challenges that did not aid the imagination process but complicated Mai’s work. Therefore, as of the fourth session narrators were given the option to instead select from the several pictures Mai had taken in Ein Qiniya—its center, harat (neighborhoods), and outskirts. If the chosen spot was visible from the narrator’s home, they used a picture that they then took together.

The last imagination session took place at the end of February 2020, just before the global lock-downs due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic started in March 2020.

Due to the limited time for the imagination sessions, the ‘image cleaning’ work of the collaged images (such as improving the cropping of pasted elements or removing white shadows) was conducted afterwards, during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.[9] While the fine-tuning work of the collaged images was kept to a minimum, the masterplans required more substantial editorial work because the vast majority of the narrators produced their plans by sketching their ideas using pens, words and sticker-arrows atop a tracing paper that layered the aerial image. The few masterplans that were produced digitally were also rough, sketchy, and lacked information that had been provided in the conversation.

In summer 2020 after the first shock of the outbreak of the pandemic and disruption of life flows, and after considerable thinking about how to edit the masterplan sketches in a way that made them easy to understand, we reached out to Basel Nasr, a visual-communication expert and the founder and director of alMasna’ (Masna’ alRusoum alMutaharikeh, The Animation Factory). We shared with Basel our experiments with using icons to represent the different types of spaces, with which we were dissatisfied. Eventually, after discussion between Basel, Mai, Natasha and Sahar Qawasmi (Director of Sakiya, collaborator), the latter suggested to invite Yara Bamieh, an artist and illustrator who is familiar with Ein Qiniya, to help in creating original expressions and icons for the masterplans. Yara joined our team, sometimes she drew the needed icons mimicking their real shapes, and in other times she drew the icons more fictionally utilizing her expertise in children’s book design.

Basel produced a three-dimensional landscape canvas, a print of which was colored by Yara. Scans of these two served as the base canvas on which Mai then knit the narrator’s stories, feelings and atmospheres that are captured in the landscapes, paths, fine details, and icons that she requested from Yara or created herself. This process gave space for individuation through the inclusion of contours, hatches, street furniture, and details that were drawn from notes, recordings, or the collaged image created in the imagination session. The post-editing of the masterplans took place between winter 2020 and winter 2021, during which time Basel, now the artistic director so to speak, not only provided invaluable mentorship to Mai, but also working space and assistance with editorial work.

In winter/spring 2021, Yara accompanied Mai on one-on-one visits to the 20 narrators. Based on the conversations that were conducted, Yara created personalized watercolor portraits in which she sought to knit patterns and lines such that they reflected the spirit and wishes of each narrator. Each one of the drawings tells a story unto itself about the social pasts, presents and aspirational diversity envisaged by the narrators.

We would like to note that until winter 2021 the names and identities of the narrators were always kept confidential and file names were coded. At each step of the research, we fully informed and collected the consent of the narrators. In a gathering that Mai organized for the narrators on 11 November 2021 (and later individual visits for those who did not attend), she consulted with each about whether the latter felt that the masterplan captured what they worked on and if there were any requested changes, as well as collecting approvals for public use within the Takhayali project. In regards to authorship, we requested that each narrator chose one of three options: (i) using their real name, (ii) using a fictional name, or (iii) using no name at all (an empty slot). To our surprise, not one of them wanted to have her identity hidden, and their names are displayed as they requested them to be. Was it that they felt empowered by the collective work? Was it out of delight with or pride of the productions? We cannot tell, but we are humbled at their courage and joy.

The three pieces of the story of each narrator—the imaginary masterplan, the personalized drawing by Yara, and an edited quotation from the recorded conversations with the narrator—were transposed onto A5-size  postcards (21.0 x 14.8 cm, 150 copies of each).[10] These postcards were made available along with an A1-size (84.1 x 59.4 cm) print of the masterplan and the personalized drawings at an open community gathering and celebration on 4 September 2022, at Im Nizar L’malah’s porch and garden, the place from which we had set off some four years earlier in late summer 2018.

SINCE FALL 2022

In the past two years since we shared the 20 imaginary masterplans of women residents of Ein Qiniya, the decision by the planning authority to create an official masterplan for the village has become a fact. The process is ongoing, albeit on the surface it seems to have been slowed down by the genocide in the Gaza Strip and its spillage into the West Bank and into Lebanon.[11] Mai, during visits to Ramallah, and Amal Juma, through own undertakings,[12] have maintained an open channel with the community of Ein Qiniya, including Nasr L’malah, member of the village council, beyond the activities of Takhayali.

In closing this chapter, which has detailed our methods in attempting to provoke ideas and pathways for alternative imaginations, we make reference to the short film Takhayal/i alWadi (by alMasna’, combines footage and animation, 4.5 minutes, Arabic with English subtitles). The idea for this short, informative and advocacy film was first proposed by Amal in 2019, and re-emerged while analyzing and evaluating the masterplans around spring 2021.

As we note in an exposé about the masterplans,[13] the 20 takhayali proposals are both similar and different. Some want nature and agriculture production preserved, others see Ein Qiniya urbanizing in forms similar to close by neighborhoods. Some want productive cooperatives, a factory, and expansion of the school, sports facilities, or commercial centers. Most want access to basic needs e.g. a bakery, a grocery shop, and infrastructures such as a nursery. What all takhayali proposals desire is a medical center and/or a pharmacy, playgrounds and open spaces, public transportation and waiting areas. And they all imagine the stretch of Wadi alDilb (a waterstream valley) as a longitudinal social space with kiosks (or a restaurant), swimming areas, and simply as a shared space to enjoy the clean(ed!) water and rehabilitated nature (upstream, a treatment plant dumps sewage from Ramallah into the wadi).

Therefore, we commissioned Basel and his team at alMasna’ to produce the Takhayal/i alWadi film as a call on everyone involved: public authorities, institutions and private developers to stop the destruction of Wadi alDilb and Wadi al ‘Oqdah and their networks. It is a call for action, to respect the fabric of life and to readapt Ramallah’s strategies, policies, legislations and masterplan to repair the damage done to the ecosystem, and to reinstall Qanoun elWadi (the law of the valley): an asset of public interest and a common. The film was completed in September 2023, and in the following weeks we, Basel, Amal, and many friends put efforts into organizing the film’s release and accompanying materials. All that work was blown up with the ongoing genocide.

The Takhayali Ein Qiniya masterplans and drawings as well as the ensuing Takhayal/i alWadi film are a call to imagine. Why to imagine? Because imagination is an act that reconciles worries with desires, an act that reconstructs appropriated socio-spatial narratives and relationalities, an act that remedies hope, repairs solidarity, and situates resistance.

Exhibitions:

Notes:

[1] The in-depth interviews were conducted between September 2018 and February 2019 and were meant to collect a broad set of information to understand more fully the living realities in Ein Qiniya. They followed a broad guideline of over 150 questions organized under seventeen domains that covered personal background, family/household, networks, relations to the neighborhood and the larger city, employment, income, debt, reproduction, care responsibilities, housing, land, infrastructure, mobility, technology, communication, health, leisure, performing identities, and personal ideology. In addition to the narrative questions of the in-depth interviews (which spanned between four to six hours, often over two sessions), we incorporated exercises of drawing mental maps to capture how the interviewees relate to spaces in their village of Ein Qiniya and in the neighboring city of Ramallah, on which they depend for all services and most supplies.

[2] The alReehan neighborhood and a significant area of neighboring lands close to alQrain’a basin of Ramallah were transferred from being under the administrative authority of the Municipality of Surda to that of the Municipality of Ramallah around 2012-2013, and that area is referred to as Ramallah alJadeedah, means New Ramallah.

[3] Mai commuted via public transportation to Ein Qiniya’s centre, and from there her journey continued on foot into the hilly surrounds. From our knowledge of the narrators, a significant number would have faced difficulties in meeting at the centrally located studio of our collaborators, Sakiya, some due to the patriarchal opposition by men in their family against this organization. This time-consuming aspect of the research was further compounded by the fact that we were conducting these imagination sessions in the bad weather conditions of fall and winter.

[4] Mai remains engaged with the community of Ein Qiniya and has developed amicable relationships with many of the families that directly, indirectly, or have not collaborated with Takhayali.

[5] Due to the person’s inability to afford the needed time or because she highly enjoyed the exercise and delved into many details but got exhausted, the session was closed and resumed on a later day.

[6] See Ip, Penn Tsz Ting (2019) Lens in Bloom: A Photography Journal by Community X Women. GenUrb publication.

[7] These problems are those that the narrator mentioned she faced either during the in-depth interview or earlier in the imagination session.

[8] These included the mobility of the team, the lack of internet in many households, and the limited time of the narrators. See the earlier ‘Tools’ subsection for a full explanation.

[9] In spring-summer 2020 Mai also completed the remaining 6 of 12 extensive interviews with policy shapers. The first 6 interviews were undertaken by Ala’ Fayyaleh and Amal Juma in the preceding 6 months.

[10] Printing the collaged images would have required extensive editing time and budget, and we had neither of them during the preparations for the first exhibition of the Takhayali works, nor afterwards as Mai commenced her Master’s studies in Cologne right at the tails of the community gathering and international workshop, in late September 2022.

[11] This text was drafted in fall 2024.

[12] Amal and Nasr are old acquaintances, and their recent collaboration is taking place through the NGO where Amal works: Takam Shu’oun alMar’a (Women’s Affairs Technical Committee), on a project related to creating response capabilities among some of the most vulnerable communities. The focus is to increase protections against Israeli aggression primarily, but in the process addressing other structural issues as well.

[13] Al Battat, Mai. Aruri, Natasha. Qawasmi, Sahar and Andreas Brück. 2023. “Takhayali [imagine, feminine] Ein Qiniya.” ARCH+ Journal for Architecture and Urbanism, No.253 , p. 120-123.