Building Exhibitions in the Age of Reparations
Building Exhibitions in the Age of Reparations. photo / provided
Exhibition
Building Exhibitions in the Age of Reparations
April 23, 2025, 2–5 p.m. Various locations, Cornell University
Building Exhibitions in the Age of Reparations explores a critical history of modern architecture through architectural exhibitions, including venues with drawings, photographs, and models in a gallery space; 1:1 scale structures built for display; buildings in world expositions; and building exhibitions as large city segments. As part of the seminar, six student teams designed site-specific exhibitions about historical exhibitions of their choice, using the media, venue, and verse of their choice. Student exhibitions respond to the questions discussed throughout the seminar, such as the changing relevance and limits of architectural exhibitions, shifting definitions of curatorship, geopolitical implications of exhibiting "other cultures," inclusion and exclusion decisions, freedom of expression in exhibitions, waste produced through temporary exhibitions, social housing as permanent building exhibitions, policy of wall-texts, choice of media, status of the object and the image, exhibition design, and finally the future of exhibitions in the age of reparations and reckoning with the wounds of the past.
- Material of Absence: Non-Aligned Geopolitics at the Venice Biennale 1991–2002
- Filip Galic, Jebreel Bessiso, Anusha Dasgupta, Nguyen Doan, Mengmeng He, Yash Mangukia
- Chinese Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2006–2018
- Polo Dong, Tina Gao, Angelina Guo, Fabian Yu
- Grafted Imperialism: Kew Gardens to the Colony
- Yakin Kinger, Luyao He, Xinyue Ru
- A City is not a Plan: Chandigarh in Architectural Exhibitions
- Sara Ather, Jessica Kaiman, Ela Malaz, Ola Taha
- Speed Traps: A critical reflection and update on Speed Limits at CCA 2009
- Thomas Pace
- The Dinner Party: A Re-invitation
- Alix de Torquat, Jiwon Chung, Edwin Flores, Malika Johnson, Tina Kvelashvili, Frank LaPuma, Xie Peng, Gustavo Pulido
The presentations of exhibitions will be followed by a panel discussion with exhibitors and guest critics.
Panel
Rethinking "Tropical Architecture" and Independence
April 23, 2025, 5:30–7 p.m. Milstein Hall Dome
Panelists:
- Nana Biamah-Ofosu (Director, YAA Projects)
- Ana Ozaki (Assistant Professor, U. Penn)
- Martino Stierli (Chief Curator, MoMA)
- Moderator: Esra Akcan (Professor, DGS, Cornell)
The panel brings together a movie director, a scholar, and an exhibition curator to present their work on the concept of tropical architecture. The term and expertise of "tropical architecture" has colonial origins and had been used intensively during the British colonization in Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. The same know-how has also been mobilized to contest colonial models and used as an alternative to European modernism during the independence eras. In addition to its relatively well-recognized British legacy, "tropical architecture" has been impactful in the construction of the Brazilian postcolonial nation-state after Portuguese colonization, the Portuguese colonies in Africa, as well as the work of Afro-Brazilians who returned to Africa. The panel fosters a critical lens to analyze climate-specificity in architecture and shows Global South's agency in inventing modernist climate-responsive architecture.
