Interpretations Conference xiii: Disobedience

Interpretations Conference xiii: Disobedience is organized by the Masters of Science in Critical, Curatorial, and Conceptual Practices in Architecture Program (CCCP) at Columbia GSAPP.

Friday, May 13
2:00 - 6:30 pm

The People’s Forum
320 W 37th St, New York, NY

Advance RSVP is required, please email criticalcuratorial@gmail.com to confirm your attendance.

SPEAKERS
Daniela Gandorfer, Northeastern University
Amy Yao, Princeton University
Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins, Bard College
Bruno Bosteels, Columbia University
V. Mitch McEwen, Princeton University
Gabriel Tupinambá, Universidade Federale do Rio de Janeiro
Eduardo Cadava, Princeton University
Keller Easterling, Yale Universiy
Beatriz Colomina, Princeton University
Mindy Seu, Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts

OVERVIEW
Reject, refuse, resist, disobey: while each word is instantiated within demands for change and emancipation, ‘disobedience’ conjures forth contradictions. ‘Disobey’ incorporates its other, ‘obey’, and the latter is haunted by the return of a repressed counterpart: transgression. Addressing this rift encapsulated by the term disobedience, this symposium sets out to probe tensions between the demand to stand against subjection and the injunction to submit to existing orders. Contemporary forms of capitalism, colonization, racism, climate change, and social and environmental injustices, are calling for forms of protest which draw upon forms of resistance forged in the past that remain, however, relevant to the specificities of the present context. This symposium will create a dialogue between historical events which continue to inform the public imagination and disobedient acts in progress today.

This conference aims to address methods of disobedience, such as individual resistance, boycotting, counter-mapping, sit-ins, occupations, and subcultural practices. These conversations hope to render visible the apparatuses which obscure certain modes of operation. Therefore, disobedience will function as a discursive knot of difference and multiplicity, suturing discontinuous narratives that are often occluded from historical and discursive accounts or actively brought into play to challenge them. This symposium suggests that we might ascribe to disobedience a valence exceeding its social, historical, temporal, and geographical frame in dialogue with the tumultuous present, by asking: what is the role of disobedience within architecture and city? Led by the Critical, Curatorial, and Conceptual Practices program at GSAPP, the symposium hopes to uncover questions arising from different spheres, including aesthetics, architecture, activism, and academia, with a sustained awareness of looming narratives of failure and a concern with the question: from what position can one speak of disobedience?

Organized by the Masters of Science in Critical, Curatorial, and Conceptual Practices in Architecture (CCCP) at Columbia GSAPP.

The event is free and open to the public. As we return to being in person, Columbia GSAPP is committed to safety and accessibility. This event will follow the CDC guidelines and adhere to the COVID safety policies at The People’s Forum.