This workshop will address the ways in which ethics and accountability operate in the respective fields of art and architecture, in order to rearticulate issues related to construction practices and workers’ rights in the field of architecture. The course will cover issues such as ethics, law, and professionalization, as well as tools and methods for visualizing complex information and networks. Students will examine three particular case studies that use boycott as a global campaign strategy, and will engage weekly in diagramming as a way of visualizing information in order to generate new ways of thinking through complex issues across disciplines.

The symposium Who Builds Your Architecture (April 22nd)?  is presented in conjunction with this workshop, and is organized by the Vera List Center in collaboration with Columbia University. The final outcome of the course will be a “strategy for an exhibition” based on the cumulative work produced by students throughout the course of the workshop. The spatial and sequential nature of the exhibition will allow it to be used as a visualizing tool, in order to deepen our understanding of the complex issues involved.

5 week course / 1 credit / 2.5 hours

Mondays 6:30-9:00PM

April 1- 29, 2013

Registration ends Friday, March 22

To register, sign up here. 

To view the course details, go here.

Faculty bios:

Shadia Shirazi is an architect, curator, and educator based in New York City. She is engaged in a transdisciplinary practice investigating the relationship of art and architecture to socio-political issues, cultural memory, and exhibition practices. Her recent curatorial projects include 230 MB EXHIBITION WITHOUT OBJECTS at Khoj International Artists’ Association in New Delhi (2013), 136 MB / EXHIBITION WITHOUT OBJECTS at The Drawing Room in Lahore (2012) and Foreclosed. Between Crisis and Possibility at The Kitchen in New York City (2011). Shirazi has written for various websites and publications including Bidoun, thresholds, Sarai Reader, and Jadaliyya. Her research has been supported by grants from the Architecture League of New York, the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture and the MIT Council of the Arts. Shirazi holds a March degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a BA from the University of Chicago and is a former fellow of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.

Carin Kuoni is a curator, writer, and arts administrator whose work examines how contemporary artistic practices reflect and inform social, political, and cultural conditions.  Under her directorship, the Vera Center for Art and Politics has developed into an internationally recognized public think tank and research lab on the role of the arts in fostering new modes of civic engagement. Kuoni curates a dynamic program of interdisciplinary public lectures, conferences, performances, and panel discussions focusing on themes of political urgency and broad resonance. The center organizes occasional exhibitions and publications exploring these topics, among them “Homeland,” “Speculation” and “Considering Forgiveness.” The center’s programs are shaped by its fellows, who have included Maurice Berger, Sharon Hayes, Kobena Mercer, and Walid Raad. The center’s current fellows are Joshua Simon, a Tel Aviv–based curator, and Bouchra Khalili, a French Moroccan filmmaker. Ms. Kuoni has written for several international publications and is the editor of Energy Plan for the Western Man: Joseph Beuys in America (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1990, 1993) and Words of Wisdom: A Curator’s Vade Mecum on Contemporary Art (ICI, 2001). She is the co-editor of Considering Forgiveness (2009) and Speculation (forthcoming), both published by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics.