Week three and we are reading "Only Resist — a feminist approach to Critical Spatial Practice". The definition in the Cambridge dictionary is:
"the belief that women should be allowed the same rights, power, and opportunities as men and be treated in the same way, or the set of activities intended to achieve this state"
Jane Rendell suggests five particular qualities that might characterise a specifically feminist approach to critical spatial practice.
While reading the text I got the idea that I wanted to make a collage with the photos and some of the words that stood out to me in the text. I started with thinking about how the feminist approach started and in the 1990s, Jennifer Bloomer questioned the gender of creativity. Which lead to the questions about the female anatomy:
“Through her dirty drawings and her incorporation of parts of the female anatomy - breasts, milk, fluids, blood, hatching, udders - into architecture, Bloomer generated a critique of the sterility of the architectural drawing process.” ...
... “for example, the term ‘big jugs’ placed within an architectural context, suggested many things, including large breasts, but also the role of the feminine and female body as a container or empty signifier used to represent patriarchal ideologies. Bloomer’s work demonstrated that the feminine can be a radical element in architectural practice.”
Patriarchal ("ruled or controlled by men")
Ideologies ("a set of beliefs or principles, especially one on which a political system, party, or organization is based")
This was the start of something bigger, there were five different ways to look at and think about spatial design practices. The critical spatial practice was formed. This way of thinking can be applied to other movements such as LGBTQ+ and Black Lives Matter as well as the three-standed collapse ecology, energy and economy.
“This current work, led by many young feminists, recognises the international dimensions of the feminist struggle and connects resistance to sexism with the fight against racial discrimination and heterosexism. In this work, we see the interconnectedness of feminism with movements such as LGBTQ and Black Lives Matter, and the key position intersectional theory now plays in showing the cross-cutting nature of oppression and the need to hold these different liberation movements together. Because struggles against oppression operate at both macro and micro levels, connections need to be constructed between the large scale and the small detail too, as well as linking up concerns of the marginalised in the north and the south” ... “The modes of working characteristic to a feminist approach to critical spatial practice are highly appropriate for tackling the three-stranded collapse of ecology, energy and economy that faces us now”
The quotes are taken from the text.
The five different modes of working are described in the text. I have looked at some examples of them to understand them:
"the experience or feeling of sharing responsibilities, experiences, activities, etc."
Example:
“Art- design & architecture group... Designers, architects and artists that work from a set of interacting perspectives; queer, feminism, class, anti-racism, the more-than-human... Large-scale theatre productions, permanent public spaces, costumes, works of art, exhibitions, animations, performances, text and theory production, education and lectures.”
Wood 2022 - What are the forests up to?
"...And if we can experience the forests’ own stories. ... the lifetime of forests is longer than the lifetime of humans, which means, among other things, that they are managed over generations. In a large-scale installation with sculptures, animations and artefacts, MYCKET leads the visitor through a (mourning) walk that touches on temporal concepts such as duration, pace and restlessness .... a part of MYCKET’s artistic research project Troll perception in the Heartlands – artistic research to widen our imagination capacity.."
Take place / Äga rum
"Together with groups of 7-8 year olds from primary schools in Söderköping municipality, we form temporary architectural offices and building communities. We examine what architecture can be based on the task of creating spaces for fantastic creatures and beings. Imagine if troll folks, fairies and elves are our clients; what should we build then? What would the houses look like? The questions act as catalysts for creation as well as a method for exploring how we are affected by the environments around us. Who are they built for? And who invented them? How can we change so that a site also fits others? What can we do (expand, remove, transform) with what usually surrounds us to evoke magical places where trolls and humans can dance together in the twilight? The workshops take place outdoors along the hiking path Östgötaleden and we build with trash and treasures we collect on site."
I think projects that are collaborating with groups of people or with nature go under collectivity. To design something that is not a "stand-alone object-building" and focuses on collaboration in the design process.
Example:
"The performance responded to the institutional place of art and the practices of art engagement by art museum visitors with gestures of attentiveness that emerge and extrapolate from the notional labor of the museum guard, an invigilator extraordinaire."
I see the subjectivity as seeing things in different ways and thinking about it differently. To maybe look at choices in a critical way maybe not to only look at one source of information.
"OTHERNESS specifically: the quality or state of being radically alien to the conscious self or a particular cultural orientation."
Example:
“A series of self-managed projects in the La Chapelle area of northern Paris which encourage residents to get access to and critically transform temporary misused or underused spaces. These projects initiated in 2001 valorise a flexible and reversible use of space and aim to preserve urban ‘biodiversity’ by encouraging the co-existence of a wide range of life-styles and living practices.
We began this process by establishing a temporary garden constructed out of recycled materials. The garden, called ECObox, has been progressively extended into a platform for urban criticism and creativity, which is curated by the aaa members, residents and external collaborators and which catalyses activities at a local and trans-local level.”
Finding a way to change, transform or alter and focus on the other ways. I also understand it as bringing together people or systems that normally don't go together.
"having the effect of performing an action: Performative language is not primarily about exchanging information."
Example:
“FATALE is a group of architects, based at the School of Architecture, KTH, pursuing research and education within, and through, feminist architecture theory and practice.”
“In response to the Irigaray figuration of the ”whirlwinds” caused by women diffusing ”themselves according to modalities scarcely compatible with the framework of the ruling symbolics” and the counter forces set in motion to restore ”their proper order”, FATALE invites all whirlwinders to a salon which celebrates this diffusion and its specific moments of articulation.”
Performativity doesn't have to be to perform something on a stage, writing the site can be a way of performativity. Rendell writes about how FATALE "has focused on activism and pedagogy, operating through different writing modes and other forms of performative and participatory practice."
“The quality or character of being material or composed of matter.
The quality of being relevant or significant.”
Example:
"Wigglesworth founded Sarah Wigglesworth Architects (SWA) in 1994. Her practice developed a reputation for ecological buildings and a particular fascination for the use of alternative materials, including straw, in architecture. One of the practice’s best known buildings is the Straw Bale House (and Quilted Office) in Islington, London, which features widely in architectural periodicals. The building was designed as a house and office for Wigglesworth and Till, using straw bales, cement-filled sandbags, silicon-faced fibreglass cloth and gabions filled with recycled concrete. “This doesn’t look like a traditional green building,” said Wigglesworth. ‘We want to bring green architecture into the mainstream by making it more urban and urbane.”
Materiality is something that I enjoy a lot when I am designing. I am usually very critical of what materials I use, something that is good for the environment haven't travelled too far and so on. I really enjoyed seeing Wigglesworth's straw bale house and how creative she has been in choosing her materials. In the text, Rendell writes "An important new generation of thinkers, such as Claudia Dutson, Hélène Frichot, Stephen Loo, Peg Rawes, Undine Sellbach, and Katie Lloyd Thomas, consider matter from an ecological perspective where humans are interconnected with animals, insects and things. Their work rethinks the treatment of material processes in such architectural traditions as the specification." This is what I have focused on myself in the previous module and would love to look into all of their work better.
Conclusion:
Starting from a point where you see the “irrational and subversive elements in written texts” to “question the gender of creativity” by seeing the patriarchal (control by men of a disproportionately large share of power) ideologies. That makes you critique the disciplinary boundaries and procedures. By taking new modes of enquiry and action to engender (to cause to exist or to develop/produce) more equitable (dealing fairly & equally with all concerned) conditions of work is a great way to challenge sexism.
In this process, there has been a new critical theory emerging to transform the way we look at space. Not only from a feminist perspective but also for other groups of people that are experiencing oppression such as LGBTQ+ and Black Lives Matter. the critical theory can also be applied to ecology, energy and economy. By seeing space from different views we can achieve a more inclusive and less rigid environment.
There is another example that I wanna put in my conclusion of another project with MYCKET.
"...MYCKET writes and creates the basis for an architectural history that has not been described before - the queer (night) club’s architecture... experience is the basis for a special way of working with architecture that works inclusively in practice.. In ten chapters, the reader is guided through the architecture of the nightclub. In room after room, we tell concretely how we can create inclusive environments."
I found it interesting the thought of how we see an environment from the walls perspective, so many actions, interactions, movements etc. are happening in a space. Incorporating many of the points brought up about the feminist approach to critical spatial practice.
Exercise:
We were asked to do another drawing with our eyes closed in class and this is how it turned out:
In this drawing, I focused on the windows in front of me and what I saw before I closed my eyes. The intensity of the darkness on the parts that had the blinds down and the light coming through the ones that were open. The same with the ceiling and the ceiling window where the light came through. I tried to draw the movement of the plants outside as well. After I closed my eyes I focused more on the noise coming from the right, people talking and a car alarm that went off. Scribbling with pencils. Down to the left, I drew what I heard when the door was opening and closing.
Exercise:
Another activity we did was to make a performance in the room see the video HERE with the words we chose from the text that we then made into verbs.
Patriarchal
Boundaries
Critical Theory
Transform
Action
Self-manage
Activism
The three chosen words and verbs:
Patriarchal To control
Boundaries To drag a line, To demarcate
Activism To raise your voice
The performance we did this week felt way better than last week. We used a lot of the room and used what was available to communicate our nine verbs.
Design challenge in 45 minutes:
We could use anything that inspired us in what we have done today. I chose some of my words, firstly I got the idea to create a form of platform staircase up to the ceiling window so you can sit up there in a little nook. The thought with that was what I was thinking to raise (your voice) or yourself up. The material I chose for this was cork and steel, one material is very sustainable and soft and warm whereas the other one is very cold and hard. The second thing I did was to play with the Boundaries to make them intersect. The glass windows meet a boundary of moss to bring nature in and have the inside of the glass intersecting with it.
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