Sarah R. Ahmed (b. Saudi Arabia, 1995) is a PhD candidate (2021-2024) in Landscape and Environment in Rome’s University (La Sapienza) for which she was awarded the International Fellowship Scholarship. After graduating from Fayoum University with a degree of Architectural Engineering, she has worked with designers, anthropologists, and social scientists invested in urban research in historical Cairo, employing performative mapping, tracing and observation to investigate the attitudes and social engagement towards ancient monuments and ways to mobilise, and recontextualise the remains into the lives of residents of Fatimid Cairo, now classified as precarious neighbourhoods. This research project was awarded two grants, followed up by its recognition and participation in multiple workshops and conferences, including African Crossroads in Marrakesh in 2018, and Non-fiction’s project Grounded Urban Practices.
She has completed her Master ALA, 2021 in Architecture, Landscape and Archaeology in Rome’s La Sapienza, University of Coimbra and Napoli’s Federico ii, in which she specialised in intervening in archaeological landscapes/sites in different contexts, with Thesis title: from the Palatine to the Tiber: Spatial Flows of Bodies and Organs.
Her research interest include: deeply analysing existing urban and landscape environments through mappings in order to achieve contextualised design solutions based on the different parameters each site has to offer. With particular interest in the historical aspects in landscape and urban contexts, she was able investigate the relationships between archaeological remains and current realities, in Cairo, Coimbra and Rome.