Preston, Julieanna. retch [performance video] at Fielding Architecture: Feminist Practice for a Decolonised Pedagogy, Brighton, UK, June 2019.
Adapted from the symposium CFP:
In the late 1970s architectural and spatial practices in the UK were challenged by feminist approaches largely derived from within the architectural discipline itself. From the 1990s onwards, architectural history / theory has been informed by gender theory appropriated, or migrated, from other disciplines. More recently, interdisciplinary critical methodologies have been used to reconceptualise architectural production, criticism and representation. What we evidence today, de-spite an emphasis on ‘Global Architecture,’ is that all these efforts are still largely informed unilaterally, and constructed within ‘Western’ and ‘Anglo-Saxon’ frame-works. This leaves a field defined as the ‘West’ and the ‘rest’. Further, the majority of rethinking of gender and decolonisation occurs within institutional and academic frameworks through practices of teaching and writing. This activity, though pertinent, often remains interior and self-referential and fails to permeate to and affect the exterior worlds of professional architectural and design practices.
This interdisciplinary symposium explored and questioned the practice of teaching architectural history / theory primarily focused in the UK context though welcoming a debate through dialogues with other contexts from a feminist and critical perspective, asking: how is it constructed, from which positions, and from where its content derives; how can its construction be critiqued and informed by other disciplines such as feminist geographies, environmental psychology, cultural studies, technology and science studies, queer theory and urban geography amongst others; and, moreover, how should architectural histories and theories be constructed in the future. We will situate ourselves at the boundary: looking both inside at the fundamentals of architecture; and looking outside at the expanded field, yet always maintaining a critical gendered perspective.
Taking place at the University of Brighton (UK), on June 24–25th, 2019, the symposium asked: What forms might a gendered history and theory of architecture take? What are our modes of operation, how do we teach, and how can we learn from others and exchange with critical thinkers both inside and outside the academy? How do we operate within the established frameworks, both historical and institutional, and how can we establish new frameworks and networks that transfer/exchange knowledge between the university and different modes of practice?
The symposium focus on four areas: Critiques, Contents, Modes and sites of writing and research, and Modes and sites of teaching.
This IV Symposium on Architecture and Gender was organised by: Catalina Mejía Moreno (University of Brighton) and Emma Cheatle (University of Sheffield)
