A Room with Seaview
Architecture is celebrated for recording our cultures and reflecting who we are or want to be. But what it means to represent us all, could be grasped properly as a design problem. No other artform showcases more concretely how people live, work, and socialise around the world.
The series ‘a Room with Seaview’ captures architectural feats created by mostly illiterate men. These autodidact architects planned, designed, and constructed homes characterised by their personal taste and preferences, using driftwood and discarded construction materials. These are the shelters of the salt workers themselves, built directly on the flats, standing in the wet salt they harvest.
Over time these homes are abandoned or destroyed by nature or the human hand. As material wealth is scarce here at the sea-salt-flats village, the remnants are recycled at a regular pace. In the harshest of environments our planet harbours to human beings, disregarded carpets once serving soft feet, consumer-waste advertisements, tarpaulins with famous brands, and plastics of any kind serve as insulation.
Though salt plays a crucial role in maintaining human health and the landscapes are captivating to the eye, harvesting it from the sea is a harsh job. First, scooped in wooden trays the sun evaporates the water. Then the wet slabs of salt are collected and left to dry further in neatly crafted heaps on shore. Broken up, it is shovelled into a mound that will slowly turn into hard rock. Finally, this mound is smashed to pieces again and scooped up into bags for transportation.
The labourers work from sunrise to sunset and are always in touch with the salty waters of the Red Sea. Many come from Sudan and send the meagre money earned back home. This support can stretch a long way, covering elderly parents, brothers, and sisters, even sending children on to further education and securing a better future for generations to come. Every alternate year the workers are allowed to visit their families for an extended period, and at the end of their contract they return home with one month of salary for every year worked.
While 'a Room with Seaview' conventionally alludes to a luxurious hotel room upgrade, here it is a cutting title that scrutinises our contemporary modes of existence in an increasingly divided world. It offers a window as well into the ubiquitous impact of climate change, an indiscriminate force that transcends geopolitical boundaries and remains impervious to any vaccine. Here at the sea-salt-flats, survival is an art.