International Visitors Programme
Housing Futures was a workshop and talk programme held on April 15th and 16th 2022 that followed the research project Architecture of Appropriation and was organized under the accompanying programme of the current exhibition Designing the Social: Appropriation as Collective Resistance. In continuation to the research of Architecture of Appropriation Housing Futures, as both highlight and closing of a chapter of intensive research, gave opportunities and created spaces for discussions on alternative ways of living, including future housing models and the legacy of squatting in the Netherlands in the light of an enduring housing crisis. At the same time the weekend followed up on a lasting wish to start rethinking how to document and preserve these spatial, social and political strategies for future generations – departing from the forms pioneered in the Architecture of Appropriation project. Especially noteworthy is the, until then, careful crafting and assembling of an heterogeneous network of social housing advocates, housing justice activists, (former) squatters, urban planners, architects, and archivists. This has been due to the 6-year long efforts of Katía Truijen, Marina Otero Verzier, and René Boer – supported in this later iteration by Setareh Noorani.
Aska Welford (UK) and Fran Edgerley (UK)
In the autumn of 2021, Fran and Aska started a research project Mile Wide Inch Deep visiting projects addressing systemic issues in local places, across the UK, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. As well as touring housing co-ops, they visited queer spaces, community gardens, and local planning initiatives. Their other ongoing collaborations include the collective construction of new a queer venue for the Friends of the Joiners Arms in London.
Aska is an architectural worker based in London. They use textile sculpture, community-based research, experimental fiction and labour organising to examine and interrupt the capitalist/ racist/ heteronormative processes which shape our physical environment. Their professional experience lies in social housing, working on unit design and masterplanning: which has informed their commitment to help redirect and transform the predominant modes in which land is developed and the world is made. Fran Edgerley is an interdisciplinary designer whose work looks critically at the processes making our social and physical environments. Fran's work is focused on the possibilities in collective and co-operative relations created by different social, economic and architectural structures. She is currently working to develop a new social centre in London as a resource to challenge the commodification of land and property. Her work over the past 12 years has been committed to finding ways for children and communities to have agency in the creation and ownership of their environments - responding to systemic issues through locally rooted projects.
Cristina Goberna Pesudo (ES)
Cristina Goberna Pesudo (Barcelona-New York) is an architect, critic, speaker, curator, educator, Fulbright Fellow and founder director of (Fake Industries) Architectural Agonism, LA CIAH (Intelligence Cell of Architecture and Humanities), Epic Architecture and The Destitute Institute. She has been recipient of a number of first prize international competitions like 4 EUROPANs , NY American Institute of Architects (AIA) New Voices Award, The Architectural League Price Young Architects Forum, the Velodrome for the City of Medellín among others and finalist to MoMA Young Architects Program, Guggenheim Helsinki, Art Basel Pavilion. Her work has been published and exhibited widely in international Biennials (Venicce, Chicago, Lisbon, Oslo, Hong-Kong-Shenzhen, Istanbul, Buenos Aires etc), and a number of museums (MoMa, Guggenheim etc). She has curated exhibitions for the CCA in Montreal and Columbia University Rose Gallery among other places. As an academic she has been faculty at the MIT, Columbia University, The Cooper Union, Sydney UTS or The Royal College of Art among otherinstitutions. She is a PhD candidate at the European Graduate School where she develops a Dissertation in the department of Phylosophy, Art and Critical Thought on the Architectures of Desire. and the Centre George Pompidou and the Chicago Art Institute have acquired her work for their permanent collections.
Dr. Kavita Ramakrishnan (UK)
Dr. Kavita Ramakrishnan is a Lecturer in Geography and International Development at the University of East Anglia. She is an urban geographer who specializes in experiences of belonging, informality, and everyday life on the margins. Her research to date focuses on two strands: the lived experiences of eviction and resettlement in India and refugee provisioning and care in European cities. She is interested in collective methodologies as a mode to disrupt traditional/colonial forms of knowledge production. Her work has been funded by the British Academy and published in journals such as Antipode, CITY, Humanity, and Contemporary South Asia.