INVITE: Fielding Architecture Symposium

We are pleased to announce the call for papers for the international symposium Fielding Architecture: Feminist Practices for a Decolonised Pedagogy to be held at the University of Brighton on June 24th and June 25th 2019. Led by our academic colleagues Dr Catalina Mejia Moreno and Dr Emma Cheatle, the 2-day symposium will be held in the university’s School of Architecture & Design, the school where André and Katrin teach.

The aim of the symposium will be to explore and question the practice of teaching architectural history/theory primarily focused on the UK context though welcoming a debate through dialogue with other contexts from a feminist and critical perspective.

The symposium asks: ‘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?’

Extracts from the call:
‘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, despite an emphasis on ‘Global Architecture,’ is that all these efforts are still largely informed unilaterally, and constructed within ‘Western’ and ‘Anglo-Saxon’ frameworks. 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.’

For submissions follow this link: http://brighton.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/fielding-architecture-call-for-papers.

For general enquiries please email: southcoastevents@brighton.ac.uk.

Image: Female Firsts, one of three exhibitions accompanying the symposium (source: aia brighton www 2019)