Recasting the genre of travel and expedition literature through a collection of journeys across arid environments

The official catalog for the United Arabic Emirates' National Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, In Plain Sight was conceived as a collection of travels through aridity. Contributors were asked to explore the relationship between travel, travel writing and the built environment. What emerged was a diverse set of positions and attitudes towards travel writing that ranged from documenting journeys through historical texts and images in search of lost relationships with aridity and the practices it engenders, to authors who traveled to contemporary arid spaces in search of nuance and abundance, and essays that explore the blurry and conceptual edges of aridity. Alongside the travel-based contributions, the book presents a series of field notes, ostensibly framed as research findings. In the field notes, curator Faysal Tabbarah attempts to narrate the places, materials and tactics that he encountered on numerous trips. Buttressing these field notes are photographic series depicting the range of tactics used in constructing Al Hajar's built environment. Addressing aridity across time, space and ideas, In Plain Sight recasts the genre of travel literature, challenging the ways in which arid environments have historically been depicted.