3.31
SPRAWL
SESSION 1:
WHITE
SUBURBIAS
Thursday, March 31, 20223-5PM ET
2-4PM CT
1-3PM MT
12-2PM PT
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sprawl-session-2-black-suburban-imaginaries-tickets-153701063017
Featuring architects Germane Barnes and Mira Henry, artists Davion Alston, Autumn Knight, and (back again!) lauren woods, scholars Matthew Lassiter and Jodi Rios + more TBA.
Starting with a postmortem on Campaign 2020’s “suburban strategies”, turning to the pivotal Black voter blocks that decided landmark elections in suburban St. Louis and Atlanta, and opening up to address the ways Black spatial imaginaries inhabit and transform suburbanized landscapes of power, Laboratory for Suburbia’s next online event will consider predominantly Black suburbias as sites—and sources—for critical art and design practice.
Laboratory for Suburbia’s Sprawl Sessions are a series of public exchanges considering strategies for site-specific art and tactical design in the complex spaces of 21st-century suburbia. These extended, casual think tanks for critical suburban practice unfold in long-form online conversations that move away from the standard panel format. The intention is not to offer authoritative statements on suburban art and design practice but to open up questions about it, not to rush to fill the gap in practice at the heart of the project but to publicly inhabit it. With numerous invited participants and space for an audience of invested practitioners and scholars to engage in dialogue, attendees are encouraged to treat the sessions as salons, dropping in and out as schedules allow (or catch the archived video).
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sprawl-session-2-black-suburban-imaginaries-tickets-153701063017
Featuring architects Germane Barnes and Mira Henry, artists Davion Alston, Autumn Knight, and (back again!) lauren woods, scholars Matthew Lassiter and Jodi Rios + more TBA.
Starting with a postmortem on Campaign 2020’s “suburban strategies”, turning to the pivotal Black voter blocks that decided landmark elections in suburban St. Louis and Atlanta, and opening up to address the ways Black spatial imaginaries inhabit and transform suburbanized landscapes of power, Laboratory for Suburbia’s next online event will consider predominantly Black suburbias as sites—and sources—for critical art and design practice.
Laboratory for Suburbia’s Sprawl Sessions are a series of public exchanges considering strategies for site-specific art and tactical design in the complex spaces of 21st-century suburbia. These extended, casual think tanks for critical suburban practice unfold in long-form online conversations that move away from the standard panel format. The intention is not to offer authoritative statements on suburban art and design practice but to open up questions about it, not to rush to fill the gap in practice at the heart of the project but to publicly inhabit it. With numerous invited participants and space for an audience of invested practitioners and scholars to engage in dialogue, attendees are encouraged to treat the sessions as salons, dropping in and out as schedules allow (or catch the archived video).
This event was co-organized by Gavin Kroeber & Mimi Zeiger and presented in partnership with SCI-Arc.
In the midst of an unabating housing crisis, stretching from the 2007 collapse of the subprime mortgage market to the current real estate bubble, we must rethink the basic elements of our domestic landscape: A house is not a home, but a financial instrument. A subdivision is not a neighborhood, but the expression of an algorithm. When you drive through suburbia you are scrolling through a spreadsheet. Beginning from the infrastructures, codes, policies, and economies that order the built environment, Laboratory for Suburbia’s third online discussion explored new ways to see the dwellings that emerge upon that foundation—and the experimental, counter-hegemonic ways these structures might be used, mis-used, inhabited, and hacked. If we are trapped in the house—economically, formally, and literally under pandemic conditions—then what is an architecture of escape?
Featured discussants: Architects, designers, and planners Keller Easterling, Patty Heyda, James Rojas, M. Casey Rehm, and Andrew Zago, artists Mary Ellen Carroll and Tim Portlock, and journalist Gustavo Arellano.
With contributions from: Aaron Betsky
Find detailed bios and links for all participants here.
Event Coordinator: Maeve Elder
Zoom Pilots: Yasil Navarro and Michael Rice (Sci-Arc)
