Invisible Actants: undoing, remaking and building-with

Hosted at the Architectural Association over two days, the AHRA PhD Student Symposium 2024 brings together PhD candidates and young researchers from various institutions in the UK and abroad to present their work, engage in roundtable discussions, and collectively reflect on how invisible stories enact defiance and resistance. Drawing inspiration from Ursula K. Le Guin’s concept of a ‘carrier bag’, foregrounding complexity and mundane aspects of existence becomes the terrain for exploring ways of imagining otherwise.

On the first day of the event, the roundtable discussions will invite us to explore the body as a thinking tool, unveil invisible types of knowledge through stories from across the globe, and dissect the importance of reshaping existing methods and practices in pursuit of transformative justice. On the second day, the various sessions will aim to trace ruptures in and dismantle monolithic narratives, reveal struggles for equality and everyday practices of living-with.

The symposium is organised by the AA PhD Programme.

Schedule

THURSDAY 9 MAY 2024

11am - Introduction

11.15am - Collective Actions Of Home Re/Making: Staying With Subjugated Knowledge, Organised by AHRA PhD Representatives Group

Participants:

• Megan Brien (Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin)
• Khaoula Hannachi (University of Blida 1, I.A.U)
• Soscha Monteiro (Delft University of Technology)

12.30pm - Lunch

1:30pm - Table Manners: Reshaping the Institutional “Opentable”, Organised by Section of Architectural Workers, SAW- Unite

Speakers:

• Reham Elwakil (Cambridge University)
• Maia Rollo (SAW Campaigns)
• Jordan Whitewood-Neal (DisCollective)
• Chair: Cristina Gaidos (SAW Campaigns)

3pm - Mapping and Beyond in Disrupting Dominant Spatial Narratives, organised by Areti Kotsoni

Speakers:

• Sarah Ackland (Newcastle University)
• Nadia Mendez (Architectural Association School of Architecture, Forensic Architecture - Plano Negativo)
• Sabrina Morreale & Lorenzo Perri (Architectural Association School of Architecture, Royal College of Art)
• Adam Paul Susaneck (Delft University of Technology, AECOM Inc.)
• Chair: Areti Kotsoni (Harvard, MIT)

4.30pm – Tea and coffee break

5pm - Embodied Fluidity – Potential in Movement Practice for Architecture, organised by Takako Hasegawa

Participants:

• Kirsty Badenoch (The Bartlett UCL)
• Jonathan Ben-Shau (Moving House)
• Margherita Dello Sbarba (Dance artist, Choreographer)
• Takako Hasegawa (Architectural Association School of Architecture, Dancing Architects)

6.30pm – Drinks reception

FRIDAY 10 MAY 2024

10am - Introduction

10.15am - Session 1

• Azurest and Other Acts of Defiance, Sarah Akigbogun (The Bartlett UCL)
• The Second Parramatta Female Factory: Displacement and Enclosure in New South Wales in the 19th Century, Alice Rebecca Crabtree (Royal College of Art)
• Shaping Shadows: Untold Histories of Tehran's Transformation, Sadaf Tabatabaei (Newcastle University)
• Chaired by Anna Font (AA) & Arzu Kusaslan (AA)

12pm- Session 2

• Dissidence in disappearing: The vanishing Pheasant Island and its Francoist Reconstruction, Guillermo S. Arsuaga (Princeton University)
• Humbling the Agricultural Machine and the [Re]-Making of Agrarian Space in Postcolonial India, Priyanka Sen (Cornell University)
• Dalit Spatial Continuities: Cleaning, Dirt, and the Construction of Interior-Exterior Binaries in Early-Twentieth Century India, Ushma Thakrar (Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism Carleton University)
• Chaired by Maria Anna Kaprara (AA) & Valerio Massaro (AA)

1.30pm - Lunch Break

2.15pm - Session 3

• The Quotidian God: Streetside Shrines of Urban India, Soumya Dasgupta (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) & Saheli Ghosh (Jadavpur University)
• Soft Architectures: Afro-Indian Spatial Strategies under Hard Migrations, Amina Kaskar (KU Leuven)
• The Metaphysics of Compassion: Waqf as Architectural Expression of Barakah in Everyday Cairo, Rehab Salama (Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism Carleton University)
• Chaired by Ruby Lanesman (AA) & Anna Sophie Karoline Naumann (AA)

4pm - Session 4

• Untold Stories of Collective Work: Unearthing Architectural and Political Narratives in Milan, Elettra Carnelli (ZHAW and ETH Zurich)
• Archiving (dis)belongings: The doing of homemaking in the queer diaspora, George Kalivis (Goldsmiths, University of London)
• From One Slum to Another: The Sociocultural Effects of Demolish-Base Urban Regeneration Projects on Displaced Residents in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Razan Samir Simbawa (University of Liverpool)
• Chaired by Shiyu Jin (AA) & Amelie Yizhou Liu (AA)

5.45pm - Session 5

• ‘Architect’, Interrupted: Policy, Practice and Abolitionist Potentials in the 1990s UK Architectural Profession, Reishin Kunishima Watabe (London Metropolitan University)
• Shelter multiple, forms of architecture on hold, Stefano Mastromarino (The Bartlett UCL)
• Eating the Fruit Johan Nieuhof’s Encounter with The Porcelain Tower of Nanjing, Tian Pan (Architectural Association School of Architecture)
• Chaired by: Claudia Nitsche (AA) & Will Orr (AA)

7.15pm - Concluding remarks

7.30pm - Drinks reception

This event will have British Sign Language interpretation. Ramps will be in place to enable access to the AA buildings via no.33 Bedford Square. A quiet room will be available.

In order to enable those still vulnerable to Covid-19 to safely attend the event, we encourage everyone attending to wear masks and, where possible, to take a test. Please do not attend if you feel unwell and are experiencing any symptoms. The room will be well-ventilated and have some areas of distanced seating.

Please get in touch to let us know of any additional access requirements that you might have and how we can best accommodate these. If you are unable to attend physically but would like to participate in the event remotely please email publicprogramme@aaschool.ac.uk