In Search of Haven imagines a world where identification is a path to “liberation” rather than control

The designers Ahmad Hammoud and Mariana I. Solís come from different parts of the world; Ahmad, is from Cairo, Egypt, while Mariana is from the border city of Tijuana in Mexico. Despite these different places, when the couple met while studying the Beyond Branding master’s degree at the Escola Técnica Superior de Disseny i Ingenieria de Barcelona Elisava, they realized that they shared a common experience: that their identity and perception of themselves they felt limited by restrictive identification documents and migration systems. . United by this shared circumstance, they decided to collaborate on their final thesis project – In search of shelter – a speculative inquiry into how identification systems pave the way to “liberation, rather than a tool of control”.

Although the project was based on Ahmad and Mariana’s personal experience, it was driven by the drive to disrupt wider systems of injustice, as well as being largely informed by other devastating political events that occur today, specifically the genocide in Gaza. “We wanted to use our own tools to reimagine a system that would create a radically different and fairer future scenario,” says Ahmad. Such a broad, complicated and personal topic required extensive research, and together they explored cartography, cartography, colonization, history, digital identities and more. To ensure their angle was representative, they completed a survey completed by around 100 people from 26 different countries. But, adds Mariana: “we are not academics, we are storytellers. We tried as much as we could to base our hypotheses and concepts on research-based theories, but also balance it with speculative concepts and a bit of fantasy.”