After successful completion of the course, students are able to develop scientific questions at the intersection of architecture and instersectionality and elaborate them with appropriate methods. This praparation for basic research and artistic research will be demonstrated with a seminar work of 40,000 characters. 

THINKING FROM AND WITH PERIPHERIES
from feminist, queer, decolonial perspectives

In their work, planners and architects mainly engage in the production of centrality: City centers, public squares and tourist zones contribute to the valuation of centres and devaluation of margins. These dynamics are based in a political economy of design invested in questions of not only what matters, but as well, who matters. (Tayob and Hall, 2019)

 "Is This OUR Edgware Road?," design and research collective moi, Edgware Road Project 2008–2016, London

In the course of the seminar “Thinking from and with peripheries” we critically explore margins and peripheries in different scales and contexts. Using texts, arts works and examples from pedagogical and cultural work we discuss how the spatial configuration of the periphery relates to its social, political and economic conditions. To do so, we will focus on works that investigate the peripheries from feminist, queer and decolonial perspectives, as well as their intersections. What can we (un)learn when we investigate the city from the peripheries? How are questions of gender, sexuality, race and class (re)negotiated from the margins? Which urban hi*stories can we find in peripheries? How and where does migration manifest itself in the city? Where do we orient ourselves in the periphery? What forms of resistance do the margins allow for?

Students of the seminar will engage in reading and writing texts, prepare presentations and participate in group discussions. They will learn to understand how urban spaces are connected to social conditions as well as to analyse the intersectional realations between space, culture, gender, sextuality, race and class.

Tayob, Huda and Suzanne Hall. 2019. Race, Space and Architecture: Towards and Open-access Curriculum. London: London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Sociology.

The seminar is based on affirmative pedagogics (according to Rosi Braidotti). 

The main elements are text, book and lecture discussions, excursions, discursive development of individual interrogation, which also involves methods of drawing. Workshops will allow us to practice the handling of scientific sources, good scientific practice and writing abstracts. Individual meetings are possible if necessary. 

Changes of the course due to the Corona pandemic (March 18, 2020)
Since March 11, attandance teaching at the TU premises has been suspended. Until further notice, the seminar "Kunst und Gestaltung 2" will be taught through distance learning. We will inform the participants of the seminar about the tasks and exercices for the up-coming session via e-mail and TISS-messages. We will work increasingly with online-platforms such as TUWEL. Please make sure you are familiar with TUWEL. You will be asked to submit tasks on the dates of the seminars.

Room:
Seminarraum AC044
Karlsplatz 13, Stiege 4, 4. OG

Meetings: Fridays, 10am-1pm

Session 1
March 6
Our peripheries and margins
Introduction to the course, collective collection of our peripheries and margins, to gather different interets, preoccupations, desires within the group concerning the study of peripheries and margins

Session 2
March 20
What kind of peripheries and margins?
In-class close-reading and discussion of “Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness” by bell hooks and presentation

In preparation of the discussion of the text answer one of the three question in written form (ca 1800 characters incl. spaces) and send your text to julia.wieger@tuwien.ac.at by March 19, 1pm
A: how does bell hooks describe the margins as sites of resistance and sites of repression respectively: how is a margin a site of repression? how can a margin become a site of resistance?
B: Which physical spaces does bell hooks describe in her text and how? Which spaces does she associate with the centre and which ones with the margins?
C: How does she describe mechanisms of oppression or discrimination? Which situations is she speaking about?

Session 3
April 3
The city outskirts and colonial planning
Discussion of “On the Outskirts” by Marion von Osten and in-class screening and discussion of Douce France. La Saga de Mouvement Beur (1992), by Mogniss Abdallah, Ahmed Boubeker, Said Boumam, Ken Fero, and Kaissa Titous

Session 4
April 24
Participation in the contact zone
Discussion “Old News from a Contact Zone: Action Archive in Tensta” by Meike Schalk and presentation and discussion of the work of the Center for Urban Pedagogy (NY, USA).
First paper due (ca 4000 characters incl. spaces)

Session 5 (Amila Širbegović)
April 28
Peripheries and migration
Joint visit of the exhibition and the panel discussion Nach der Flucht (2020) curated by Amila Širbegović and Vida Bakondy

Session 6 (Amila Širbegović)
May 8
Peripheries and migration
Discussion of Das Museum der bedingungslosen Kapitulation (excerpts) by Dubravka Ugrešić and reflection of the exhibition and panel discussion of Nach der Flucht.

Session 7
May 15
Queering architecture from the margins
Dissussion of Behind Straight Curtains: Towards A Queer Feminist Theory Of Architecture (chapter 1) by Katarina Bonnevier and in-class screening and discussion of Wildeness (2012) by Wu-Tsang

Session 8
May 29
Black geographies
Discussion of “No One Knows the Mysteries at the Bottom of the Ocean” by Katherine McKittrick and Clyde Woods and presentation and discussion of "Landed: Gates et al." (2019) by Theaster Gates.
Second paper due (ca 4000 characters incl. spaces)

Session 9
June 5
Pactices and knowledges of submerged perspectives
Discussion of The Extractive Zone: Social Ecologies and Decolonial Perspectives (excerpts) by Macarena Gómez-Barris.

Session 10
June 19
Non-permancy and the archive
Discussion of “Reflections about a Disappearing Mining Town in the Archive: Staying with its non-permanancy” by Karin Reisinger and visit of the former site of “Jenseits der Natur” (2019) by Club Real.

 Presence, active participation in the seminar and elaboration of an individual seminar work of about 40,000 characters. 

Each seminar requires reading text in advance. Texts will be provided at least one weak before the text discussion (uploaded in TISS). 

Main course literature

Ahmed, Sarah. 2006. Queer Phenomenology. Orientation, Objects, Others. Durham / London: Duke University Press. (excerpts)

hooks, bell. 2000. "Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness.” In Gender Space Architecture. An Interdisciplinary Introduction edited by Jane Rendell, Barbara Penner and Iain Borden, 203-209. London / New York: Routledge.

Minh-ha, T. Trinh. 1995. “No Master Territories.” In The Post-Colonial Studies Reader edited by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffithsand and Helen Tiffin, 215-218. London / New York: Routledge.

Petti, Alessandro. 2017. "The Architecture of Exile IV. B.” e-flux architecture, Refugee Heritage, February 22, 2017. https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/refugee-heritage/99756/the-architecture-of-exile-iv-b/

Schalk, Meike. 2017.  "Old News from a Contact Zone: Action Archive in Tensta.” In The Social (Re)Production of Architecture. Politics, Values and Actions in Contemporary Practice edited by Doina Petrescu and Kim Trogal, 329-345.

Ugrešić, Dubravka. 1999. Das Museum der bedingungslosen Kapitulation. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag. (excerpts)

Examples from art, pedagogy and cultural activities:

Amila Širbegović and Vida Bakondy, “Nach der Flucht”, 2020

Center for Urban Pedagogy New York, “Garbage Problems,” 2002

Centre for Possible Studies, “On Edgeware Road”, 2012

Club Real, "Jenseits der Natur”, 2019

Meike Schalk, "Tensta Action Archive”, 2014

Michi Klein, "Transdanubien: Der Nordrand als Testfeld Wiens”, 2020

Theaster Gates, "Landed: Gates et al.", 2019

Tomash Schoiswohl, "Linien Wall Projekt", 2018

 We will read texts in English and hope that you are interested in inclusive architectures.