MIARD TALKS | TWO: Agency
October 29, 2020
14:00 – 17:30 CET

In the Spring 2020 major protests, spurred by racist killing at the hands of US police officers, took North America and Europe by storm. Compared to previous BLM actions, public consensus has now significantly broadened, and the connections between structural violence, unsolved colonial legacies, and environmental damage harder to ignore.

Yet it remains difficult for spatial practitioners to find their feet, and understand how political urgencies can filter into design strategies. Architecture can often seem an agent of conservation rather than change, especially as it is so often still declined in terms of problem solving.

For the second session of MIARD Talks, three leading figures are coming together to present a recent project each. Through their work, a curator, an architect, and a duo of sound artists will hint at the agency that art and design can have even in the bleakest of  times.

Invernomuto
Simone Bertuzzi and Simone Trabucchi have been collaborating as Invernomuto since 2003. Although their work focuses primarily on the moving image and sound, they also integrate sculpture, performance and publishing into their practice. Currently Invernomuto are developing a new commission for the 2020 Liverpool Biennial and the 58th October Salon-Belgrade Biennial 2020. An ongoing project, Black Med, was conceived in 2018 for Manifesta 12 (Palermo) and has recently been part of the performance programme at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. Their work has been displayed in such institutions as Tate in London and MAXXI in Rome.

Irene Sunwoo
Irene Sunwoo is director of exhibitions at Columbia GSAPP, and curator of the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery. Recent exhibitions include Torkwase Dyson: 1919 Black Water, Cooking   Sections:   Offsetted, Arakawa  and  Madeline Gins:  Eternal  Gradient,  as well as the film program A Wildness Distant. She was associate curator of the inauguralChicago Architecture Biennial, and has taught at Parsons, Bard College, and Oberlin College.

Arna Mačkić
Arna Mačkić is an architect and co-founder of Studio L A alongside Lorien Beijaert. For L A, the practice of architecture isa device through which to investigate societal issues, phenomena and narratives, and to place them in renewedperspectives. Their projects often relate to inclusion and exclusion mechanisms, refugees, collective identity and public domain. Since September 2019, Arna is member of the supervisory board of the Jan van Eyck Academy.