NEW CAPITAL (2021-2023)
What does the ideal capital city look like? Nick Hannes travelled to six countries - Egypt, Korea, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Indonesia and Brazil - that have recently built or are in the very process of building a new capital. Each is a typical example of what Rem Koolhaas calls the Generic City - a planned city without historical stratification, local identity or a character of its own. Like a visual anthropologist with a keen eye for detail, Hannes sets out to discover the human dimension in a setting full of spectacle architecture and pompous prestige projects.
NEW CAPITAL is a critical reflection on unbridled neoliberal urban development and its social and ecological impact, laced with subtle humour and surprising coincidences. Meandering between pride and sadness, NEW CAPITAL shows how utopia and dystopia are sometimes surprisingly closely related.
NEW CAPITAL was launched at Be-Part / Platform for Contemporary Art in Waregem (BE). The book (Lannoo, 2024) is available in my webshop. The chapter on the New Administrative Capital of Egypt won the World Press Photo Award in 2023 (category Africa, Stories).
This project was supported by the Flemish Government.
