The Void of the Desert

The Void of the Desert

Drawing on the work of Samia Henni in “Deserts are Not Empty”, I see the desert as an important site to examine questions of climate change and history, and how it can reveal processes of coloniality, imperialism and marginalisation. I explore this through what Paulo Tavares terms as “Imaginative Geographies”: utilising various artefacts and community engagement presented both as evidence and new forms of representations. In the context of Wadi Rum, a protected area bar for forms of extraction such as tourism and Hollywood production, what histories become erased?