A Festival of Feminist Architectural Writing | Re:arrangements and A Revisitation

Hosted by Situated Practice MA, and organised by The Bartlett's Jane Rendell, Polly Gould and Sarah Butler, with Emma Cheatle (University of Sheffield) and Hélène Frichot (University of Melbourne), this event is a celebration of feminist architectural writing with a festival of readings, conversations and discussions exploring legacies, current practices and future directions, and the launch two new publications.

The festival consists of two parts: a day of curated readings and two roundtables around lunch, and an evening of two book launches around a drinks reception. Attendance is free but please register via Eventbrite for either the day, the evening or both sessions.

The evening begins with the launch of Lilian Chee’s Architecture and Affect: Precarious Spaces (Routledge, 2023), introduced by Barbara Penner and culminates in a launch event for the special issue of Journal of Architecture 2024, Jennifer Bloomer: A Revisitation co-edited by Emma Cheatle and Hélène Frichot, celebrating the legacies of the ground-breaking work of Jennifer Bloomer. 

The event is funded by The Bartlett School of Architecture.

For further information on each workshops session, the book launches and to register your attendance please visit the drop-down menus below: 

1 May | 09:30–16:00 | Rearrangements and A Revisitation 

DAY EVENT 

9:30 Coffee

10:00 Introductions with Jane Rendell, Polly Gould, Sarah Butler, Emma Cheatle, Hélène Frichot, and Amy Kulper.

10:15–11:00 REARRANGEMENT 1: EXPERIMENTAL Feminist Architectural Histories with Anna Andersen, Flo Armitage-Hookes, Sophie Read, and Rachel Siobhán Tyler, with respondent Megha Chand Inglis, hosted by Jane Rendell.

Short break TO REARRANGE

11:15–12:30 LIVE WRITING very short conversational readings between Angela Kyriacou and Ruth Oldham, Adriana Massidda and Laura Mark, and Toby Blackman and Naina Gupta, with respondent Edwina Atlee, hosted by Emma Cheatle and Luis Hernan.

Live Writing suggests acts of writing that implicitly care for a locality; where connections are created that extend from a writer towards a context to reveal ways of being in the world, paying attention to it and others who inhabit it. Writing spatially–spatialising writing–is a practice, a way of making sense of and giving voice to the myriad ecologies that have been forgotten in the past, buried in multiple presents or voided as valid futures. We write ourselves and others into sites and–as the pen scratches paper and letters are typed–deep and future time is put on pause, created and reconstructed. By enacting dialogues between ourselves and to others, we argue that writing can reveal the intersections of acts and actors of care. As a radical creative resistance to the marketisation of late stage capitalism these dialogues pay attention to the fragile infrastructures that sustain communities.

Short break TO REARRANGE

12:45–13:30 REARRANGEMENT 2: Writing in the Expanded Field with Rafael Guendelman Hales (via zoom), Xiaowen Fu (via zoom), Marianna Janowicz, Zoë Quick, and Chloe Shang, with respondent Tumpa Fellows, hosted by Polly Gould.

13:30–14:30 Lunch (lunch provided) 

14:30–15:15 Rearrangement 3: Ecopoetics with Eliot Haworth, Catalina Mejía Moreno, Charlotte A. Morgan, Eva Tisnikar, and Anna Livia Vørsel, with respondent Peg Rawes, hosted by Sarah Butler.

15:15–15:55 Environmental Storytelling hosted by Hélène Frichot and Isabelle Doucet introduces environmental storytelling as a methodological tool for critically analyzing urgent questions related to climate justice and for developing creative and situated imaginaries for alternative futures. Storytelling positions the researcher in their field and demands they pay close attention and cultivate curiosity from the midst of the complex web of relations in which they are materially embedded, with respondent Neba Sere.

15.55-16.15 Final reflections from Maxwell Mutanda, Guang Yu Ren, and Azadeh Asgharzadeh Zaferani.

Short break before evening events begin. Please book to attend separately if wishing to attend both. 

This event is currently fully booked, please join the waiting list for a chance to still attend. 

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1 May | 16:15–21:00 | Launch of Two Publications 

EVENING EVENT

16:15–17:30 BOOK LAUNCH 1: Architecture and Affect: Precarious Spaces, authored by Lilian Chee and published by Routledge, 2023. Introduced by Barbara Penner.

To place architecture next to affect is to ask whether there is a new way to think the political in architecture, specifically how architectural histories and theories might be wrested from their biases to engage subjects in the social imaginary excluded from architecture’s archival and published records. Reciprocally, to think-with architecture is to accord affect theory what it misses – specificity of physical concreteness and materiality.

17:30–18:00 Refreshments 

18:00–20:00 BOOK LAUNCH 2 The day culminates in Jennifer Bloomer: A Revisitation the launch event for the special issue of Journal of Architecture 2023. v. 28, n. 6, co-edited by Emma Cheatle and Hélène Frichot, celebrating the legacies of the ground-breaking work of Jennifer Bloomer. With contributions from: Laura Harty, Katie Lloyd Thomas, Jane Rendell and Lilian Chee. Online contributions: Katarina Bonnevier and Julieanna Preston. Respondent: Kim Trogal.

Whatever happened to Jennifer Bloomer, the inspiring architectural thinker, practitioner and pedagogue? With this special issue of The Journal of Architecture, we gather a range of contributions — critical essays, photo essays, and creative works — as sites for experimentation and locations of critical discourse. With contributions from eleven architectural scholars and a letter from Jennifer Bloomer herself, we interrogate, celebrate, and perform Bloomer. We ask: what was the impact, influence, and effect of her ground-breaking contributions to architectural discourse and practice? We aim to illuminate Bloomer’s legacy and introduce projective scholarship on her extraordinary work. We explore her original making, writing, and pedagogical practices; consider the material weight of her meticulous work on the texture of texts; celebrate her art of conceptual creativity, spatial storytelling, experimental installation, and dirty drawing; and revisit her intellectual curiosity and complexity.

Contributors to the special issue: Jennifer Bloomer, Katarina Bonnevier, Karen Burns, Emma Cheatle, Lilian Chee, Hélène Frichot, Laura Harty, Katie Lloyd Thomas, Doina Petrescu, Julieanna Preston, Jane Rendell, Mitchell Squire.

20:00–21:00 Drinks reception and discussion 

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Please book to attend the day conference separately in the tab above. 

More Information:

• Situated Practice MA

Image: Hands-on visit to London Centre for Book Arts, 2023. Image by Polly Gould