John Hanna graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at Graz University of Technology in 2014. During his study years, he volunteered and worked with housing and shelter organizations in Zambia, Egypt and Brazil. In the past few years, he worked closely with contemporary art institutions in Graz and in Cairo. Hanna has recently started his doctoral programme at the Chair History of Architecture and Urban Planning at Delft University of Technology.
His research project works on reconstructing a narrative of the everyday spatial practices in Beirut throughout the 15 years of the Lebanese civil war, through fetching and collecting registers of spatial production by means of combining narrative and archival analyses with critical forensics of the built environment. The research discusses the role and the meaning of the urban setting during conflicts. It contributes to the discourse on defining contemporary heritage and modern ruins, and the significance of the built environment to the healing processes and collective memories in post-conflict environments.
