Curating and Counter Curating

(Programme & biographies below)

Thordis Arrhenius (SE) is an architect and Professor in Architectural History and Conservation at the Institute of Form, Theory and History. She teaches theory of conservation, the masters design studio Re-Store and the post-professional masters in conservation and urbanism. She is a founding member of Oslo Centre for Critical Architectural Studies (OCCAS) and leader of the four year international research project Place and Displacement: Exhibiting Architecture (funded by Norwegian Research Council 2011-14). Her research interests lie within the field of architectural preservation theory with a specific focus on the medium of the architectural exhibition. Arrhenius has published widely on architecture in magazines such as Journal of Architecture, Agora, AA-files, Future Anterior, and the Nordic Journal of Architectural Research. She is an associate editor of Nordisk Museologi.

Martin Beck (US) is a New York-based artist whose exhibitions and projects engage questions of historicity and authorship and they draw from the fields of architecture, design, and popular culture. A ‘leitmotif’ in Beck’s practice is the notion of display: his works often engage histories of exhibiting and communication formats and, on a material level, negotiate display’s function as a condition of image-making. Recent exhibitions include “Remodel” at Ludlow 38 in New York (2011), contributions to the 29th São Paulo and the 4th Bucharest Biennales (2010), and “Panel 2—‘Nothing better than a touch of ecology and catastrophe to unite the social classes….’” at Gasworks in London (2008). Beck is the author of About the Relative Size of Things in the Universe (2007) and ‘an Exhibit viewed played populated’ (2005). He currently teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.

 

Jan Boelen (BE) is the artistic director of Z33 in Hasselt, Belgium. Z33 is a house for contemporary art and a lab and meeting place for experiment and innovation. Through projects and exhibitions Z33 makes the visitors look at everyday life in a new way. Artists confront visitors with impressions and experiences that encourage them to look differently at everyday aspects from the lives of every person. Jan Boelen graduated as product designer at the Media and Design Academy (KHLim) in Genk (BE).  He is also mentor in the department 'Man and Well being' at the Design Academy Eindhoven (NL) and chairman of the committee for Architecture and Design of the Flemish Community. He initiated the Z-OUT project and Manifesta 9.

 

Carlo Caldini (IT) is a Florence based architect who has been combining professional practice, teaching, an intense academic research worldwide and trade union assignments. In 1964 together with Mario Preti and Walter Natali he travelled extensively throughout Greece, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria on a VW van in order to study Chandigarh and Eastern cities. In 1967, together with Giorgio Birelli, Fabrizio Fiumi and Paolo Galli, he founded the research group “9999” which devoted to architectural experimentation and sustainability within the Italian Radical scene. In 1972, 9999 won MoMA (Italy: The New Domestic Landscape ) Competition for Young Designers with their project Vegetable Garden House which developed out of the experiments in Florence, inside the progressive discothèque the group founded and designed in 1969, “Space Electronic”.

 

Binna Choi is director of Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory since the summer of 2008.She has been running Casco’s cross-disciplinary programme, which focuses on the construction of social space and issues of collaboration, collective production and the common vis-à-vis the contemporary, social and political condition, positioning itself along with contemporary social movements. Choi has also been developing a two year research project The Grand Domestic Revolution – User’s Manual at Casco in collaboration with Maiko Tanaka and Group Affinity, a summer school and exhibition, at Kunstverein Munchen with Bart van der Heide. Prior to Casco, she worked as part of the curatorial team at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst in Utrecht.Choi teaches at the Dutch Art Institute / ArtEZ and she is a founding member of Electric Palm Tree, a research community for the issues of commons and differences in the current global society.

 

Pietro Derossi (IT) is a Turin based Architect. Together with Giorgio Cerretti, Carlo Gianmarco, Riccardo Rosso and Maurizio Vogliazzo, he founded the Gruppo Strum in Turin 1971. He graduated from the Faculty of Architecture, Turin. Derossi is a professor of Architectural Design at the Faculty of Architecture, Milan Polytechnic and visiting professor at the Architectural School of the London Architectural Association. He also teaches at the Pratt Institute and Columbia University, New York, at the Faculty of Architecture, Lausanne Polytechnic and at the Hochschüle der Künste, Berlin. Pietro Derossi’s works have been published in major national and international magazines and he has taken part in numerous exhibitions in Italy and abroad. Derossi has published widely and main publications include Progettare nella città, Umberto Allemandi & C., Chieri (Torino) 1988, Modernità senza avanguardia, Quaderni di Lotus, Electa, Milano 1990, Pietro Derossi, Per un’architettura narrativa. Architetture e progetti dal 1959 al 2000, Skira, Milano 2000 and Derossi Associati, Racconti di architettura, Skira, Milano 2006.

  

Pelin Dervis (TR) is an architect, independent editor and curator. Between 2005 and 2010 she was the director of Garanti Gallery (GG). Pelin studied architecture and graduated from Istanbul Technical University. She completed her master’s degree in the Department of Architectural History at the same university. She actively practiced as an architect for about fourteen years between 1990 and 2004. During the five years at GG, she coordinated and curated almost thirty exhibitions in Istanbul and abroad, worked as the editor of its publications and organized various other activities. Since 2010 she is a consultant for Garanti Bank’s new cultural organization SALT in the fields of urban issues, architecture and design. She has also undertaken the publications editorship of the 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011) under the curatorship of Adriano Pedrosa and Jens Hoffmann.

 
Magnus Ericson (SE) is senior advisor and co-ordinator at the Swedish Museum of Architecture in Stockholm. He was commissioned in 2010 to be a part in developing the museum’s new design related program. Between 2007 and 2009, he was assigned as a project manager at Iaspis, The Swedish Arts Grants Committee's International Programme for Visual Art, Design, Craft and Architecture, to pursue and develop activities within the fields of design, crafts and architecture. Between 2003 and 2006, he was a curator and project co-ordinator responsible for developing the program at Magasin 3, Stockholm Konsthall’s satellite project space Magasin 3 Projekt. He has a MFA in product design after studying at Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm and at Glasgow School of Art.

 

Sarah Herda (US) is the Director of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Founded in 1956, the Graham Foundation makes project-based grants to individuals and organizations and produces public programs to foster the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture, and society. Herda oversees the foundation’s grant making as well as a program of exhibitions, lectures, and events presented at the foundation's headquarters in the historic Madlener House, a turn-of-the-century Prairie style mansion in Chicago. From 1998-2006, Herda was the Director and Curator of the Storefront for Art and Architecture, in New York City, where she produced over 40 exhibitions. Herda is active in the design community and serves on numerous advisory boards and review panels related to architecture, art, and design. She is currently teaching a seminar entitled Exhibiting Architecture at University of Illinois at Chicago.

 

Peter Lang (US) is an Associate Professor with the Department of Architecture at Texas A&M University. He writes on the history and theory of post-war Italian design and architecture, with a focus on Italian experimental design from the sixties. In 2003 he co-curated with William Menking the exhibition Superstudio: Life Without Objects for the London Design Museum, as well as co-authored the book of the same title for Skira Publications. Lang is currently writing: “Minor Utopias”, a multi-media reflection on a number of short lived and erratic post-war utopian communities.

 

Luca Molinari (IT) is an architect, critic and associate professor of Contemporary Architecture at SUN (Seconda Università degli Studi, Naples). He’s a co-founder of Viapiranesi srl, a multidisciplinary studio for advanced research, project development and consulting within contemporary architecture and design. He writes for Italian and international magazines, such as: Lotus, Abitare, Domus, Ottagono, Il progetto, Archis, L’architecture d’aujourd’hui and A+U and since 1995 he is editor of the architecture and design series of Skira Publisher. In 2010 Luca Molinari was appointed curator of the Italian Pavilion at XII International Architecture Exhibition in Venice.

 

Magnus af Petersens (SE) is curator of contemporary art at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm since 2002 . He is responsible for the museum collection of international art from 1965 to today. He was previously a curator at the Färgfabriken, exhibition producer at Riksutställningar, chairman of Xposeptember Stockholm Photo Festival . He has been responsible for shows such as Paul McCarthy (2006) , Eclipse (2008) , Clay Ketter (2009) , Keren Cytter (2010) and a series of collection presentations, small exhibitions and projects. He is also curator of the Nordic Pavilion , Venice Biennale 2011th

 

Felicity D. Scott (US) is assistant professor of architecture and director of the program in Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture (CCCP) at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University.  She is also a founding co-editor of Grey Room, a quarterly journal of architecture, art, media, and politics published quarterly by MIT Press since Fall 2000.  In addition to publishing numerous articles in journals, magazines, and edited anthologies, her book, Architecture or Techno-Utopia: Politics After Modernism, was published by MIT Press in 2007, and another book, Living Archive 7: Ant Farm, appeared on ACTAR Editorial in May 2008.

 

Mark Wasiuta (US) is an architect and theorist based in New York City. He is currently on faculty at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation, where he is also the Director of Exhibitions and Director of Global Experiments in Art and Architecture. He is partner in the research office International House of Architecture that is currently developing a series of projects based on the history of Los Angeles air, its pollution and other forms of contaminants. His own research is focused on the turn to theories of environment and environmental design in postwar architecture.

Programme:

Thursday 22 September

 

12.00 Registration. Screening of films from Italy the New Domestic Landscape

13.00 Symposium inauguration , Lena Rahoult, museum director

Introduction by Magnus Ericson

13.30 Commentaries on Italy the New Domestic Landscape by Luca Molinari, Peter Lang and Mark Wasiuta

14.30 Break

14:45  Recollecting Italy the New Domestic Landscape, a series of presentations and conversations with Carlo Caldini, Pietro Derossi and Cristiano Toraldo di Francia, moderated by Luca Molinari

16.00 Break

16:30 Lecture by Felicity Scott

17:15 Lecture by Magnus af Petersens

18:00 Break

18.30 Panel discussion with speakers and guest Thordis Arrehnius moderated by Mark Wasiuta

Friday 23 September

 

10.00 Introduction and summary of day 1 by Magnus Ericson and Peter Lang

10.30 Presentation by Sara Herda

11.00 Presentation by Binna Choi

11.30 Presentation by Jan Boelen  

12.00 Lunch break. Films from Italy the New Domestic Landscape are screened

13.30 Presentation by Pelin Dervis

14.00 Presentation by Martin Beck

14.30 Q&A session, moderated by Magnus Ericson

15.30 break

16.00 Panel discussion as summary of the conference, moderated by Peter Lang