By Frances Smith
From Feb. 27 to April 3, the Toronto Metropolitan University’s (TMU) architectural science department will present an exhibition titled Beyond the Wall at the Paul H. Cocker Gallery.
Beyond the Wall will feature a narrative sequence of six case studies of oppressive barriers, examining the Apartheid Wall through the West Bank, the Berlin Wall, the Ireland Peace Walls, the United States (U.S.)-Mexico Border Wall, The North American Highway Program & Claiborne Corridor and the Gaza Blockade & University of Toronto (U of T) encampment.
Heba Al-Fayez, a fourth-year architectural science student at TMU and one of the team leads with Beyond the Wall, said the exhibition is an “exhibition about real people’s experiences that acknowledges both oppression that is caused by built-in design…walls that are built to separate and oppress people but also the ways that people transform those walls, transgress them and change them into something that serves them so they regain agency.”
Al-Fayez explained how Beyond the Wall aims to demonstrate how barriers—like the wall through the West Bank—can be transformed into tools of personal agency by oppressed peoples, highlighting human stories of resistance.
“The story of somebody who climbs over [a] wall. That is a story of personal agency or somebody who paints an image of their homeland that is now cut off by the wall. That is a piece of agency, that is them using a wall as a surface for expression,” said Al-Fayez.
Al-Fayez said the physical exhibit revolves around borders and stories, “that begin and end with Palestine talking about how all of these different case studies of oppression are similar, but also the ways that people naturally fight back and resist and overcome these built-in divisions.”
Each case examines a barrier that was designed and constructed by individuals whose interests lay in the subjugation of others. According to Al-Fayez, each in the exhibition is presented with two perspectives: one illustrating its oppressive impact and the other its intervention impact.
One study explores the U.S.-Mexico border wall, severing neighbouring communities, but cross-border coalition and protest art endures.
The Berlin Wall shows a barrier that divided families and communities but was transformed by artists into a protest space. Belfast’s peace walls separated British Protestants and Irish Catholics, yet the use of murals reclaimed the contested space.
The North American Highway Program & The Claiborne Corridor describes how the construction project displaced thriving Black communities, yet they were able to revitalize the remaining space around and below the expressways through art.
Occupy U of T’s People’s Circle for Palestine shows where students turned fences installed around King’s College Circle into symbols of resistance by hanging banners with messages of support.
Architecture students also examine the Apartheid Wall, segregating Palestinians from Israelis, exemplifying how barriers aid in confining and separating people as a part of a system of power and attempt to remove agency from the people it confines.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, the Israeli government has killed over 46,000 Palestinians and displaced nearly two million people in Gaza, destroying homes and land, separating families, bombing Palestinian hospitals and blocking humanitarian aid from entering Palestine.
According to a report from Amnesty International, Israel’s military offensive against Palestine was determined to constitute genocide, citing “during the nine-month period under review, prohibited acts under Articles II (a), (b) and (c) of the Genocide Convention.”
When discussing how physical barriers shape our understanding of oppression, Al-Fayez emphasized “the architecture of inconvenience” and how barriers hinder groups’ ability to move or connect with others. She added that it “multiplies on a systematic level, for example, the Apartheid Wall in Palestine affects mobility and there it divides up the land and cuts people’s access from one village to another.”
“Even if it’s just a wall. Not a weapon, per se, it kind of has the same effect in the way it…breaks down people and breaks down communities,” said Al-Fayez.
Al-Fayez and the creators of Beyond the Wall hope to have an impact on the visitors by highlighting the importance of understanding similarities in tools of oppression “across different times and places” and how recognizing these similarities can help dismantle structures of confinement through shared human experiences.
Al-Fayez noted that some barriers are seen as oppressive while others are not. “When you celebrate the destruction of the Berlin Wall, but you dehumanize Palestinians and their struggle against the walls that confine them…there’s inconsistency there,” she said. “We want TMU students to see the similarities in the stories of oppression…and the stories of fighting back.”
Even outside conflict zones, barriers are used as structures of control and observation. Amina Jamal, a professor of sociology at TMU, shared in an interview with The Eyeopener that “the way a modern society is organized is to facilitate…the use of space by different groups of people, and also to keep an eye, to observe, to exclude…to demarcate, to contain and observe different populations within the society.”
Jamal stressed that for able-bodied “mainstream subjects” in society, the social organization of spaces may seem “natural, normal, accidental.”
However, she added that it is important to realize how social organization is used to control, surveil and divide groups by using physical borders as portrayed in the exhibit.
“Borders, even national borders, are artificially constructed to keep…people out…who cannot become a part of the nation…this defines people as legal [and] not legal,” said Jamal.
With the exhibition beginning and ending with Palestine, Al-Fayez shared what we can learn through it. “I’m Palestinian, and so for me, it was really important to honour [and] acknowledge the immense suffering, control and…oppression that’s going on right now in Gaza and across Palestine. So, for us, we really need to start with acknowledging the truth of what’s actually happening.”
Al-Fayez shared that we have to acknowledge that oppression is designed—there are real, human designers behind systems of control and behind physical barriers.
Jamal said the architecture of inconvenience and segregation is planned out, drawn and methodically built. “Sociologists, philosophers and many contemporary critical thinkers have pointed out that the organization of spaces and society is neither accidentally nor is it just a naturally occurring process, but that spaces are the way pieces [are] split, spaces are organized in society, tells a lot about the power relations in society.”
The exhibit opens with a grand opening on Feb. 27 from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Paul H. Cocker Gallery.
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