HAIFA, ISRAEL Sit(e)lines of a Garden City

Sit(e)lines of a Garden City explores Haifa’s system of urban stairs as present and future shared spaces, monumentalizing the city’s 1000 stairs which traverse monuments, markets, cinemas, and residential homes. Suturing public and private with vistas that sweep towards the Mediterranean and green corridors, the stairs create pockets and corridors of heterogeneous mingling, uniquely offering both passage and pause. Away from the noise of the street and surrounded by ‘garden city’ vegetation, the stairs are a true collective space.
Rather than merely a segue between one site and another, the stairs, visually and bodily, become active places to be in, meet neighbors and enjoy open space at an intimate scale within the city. The installation of Sit(e)lines in the Seoul Biennale integrates lenticular photography of views into the free standing ‘stair structures’, capturing moments of collectiveness in four typical stair elements that share different views, locations, and sizes. The views are composed by photographer Gili Merin, commissioned for this project. These four pieces, separated in various locations, offer encounters with the stair space and view. Separately and together they tell a story about the city, inviting visitors into the landscape of Haifa, extending this space of conviviality into Seoul.