architecture

In this podcast, Gazan artist Mahmoud Alhaj tells us about visual strategies and counter-strategies to reclaim their right to see. We talk about low-resolution images and human rights, about rubble and displacement architecture, and about how to build tents with whatever is at hand. In contrast, Mahmoud shows us 3D scans, pilots with architectural knowledge, military archives, and other psyops tactics. He also gives us a glimpse of the art scene in the Gaza Strip and the resilience of the Palestinian people. In his work, the past, present, and future collapse, while the perception of time operates differently in the everyday life of the occupation.

In this podcast, we start by asking architect, curator and researcher Mabel O. Wilson to talk about her personal, educational, and professional development, in response to a lack or silencing of critical thought. We then discuss ideas of land, property, and possession, and also—based on the context of her recent trip to the West Bank—colonial encounters, spatial aspects of enclosures, and degrees of containment. Mabel reminds younger generations of the importance of using architecture not just as a means to build and design, but also to gather, observe, and build relations, to understand history from a different perspective, and to survive within the current socio-political climate, without giving in to despair.

The Chilean poet Manuel Sanfuentes talks about Amereida, which emerged from a journey undertaken by a group of poets, architects, and philosophers from Tierra del Fuego to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, in the course of 1965. Years later, the experience resulted in Ciudad Abierta, a series of experimental, imagined, collaboratively-built constructions and practices jutting out of vast expanse of dunes, estuaries, and gorges bordering on the Pacific Ocean.