Cocoon is a series of boxes nestled within each other; a steel cage-like mesh façade. The viewer cannot enter the space but can see inside: similar to observing the human state during quarantine and restrictions. The color blue reflects the most prominent color we have seen throughout these times: the mask’s color, detergent, and hygiene. The project aims to highlight our collective vulnerability in the face of a primal menace; It vivifies the shared experience of the pandemic using the ubiquitous banality of the objects that have come to represent our plight and our hubris. Cocoon seeks to materialize the feelings of entrapment and isolation, a container for reality and reflective of our different pandemic experiences.

Marawan Mahmoud, Nour Elbery, and Rashid Modibbo are recent architecture graduates of the American University of Sharjah. The trio met in 2017 during their freshman year of college and became good friends, sharing interests and diatomic ideas regarding art, philosophy, and architecture.