Participants

Rachel Andrews

Daria (Daša) Anosova

Riccardo Badano

Jhono Bennett

Karen Bosy

Hannah Clarkson

Francesco Fiammenghi

Myvanwy Gibson

Molly Grad

Daniel Jones

Hang Li

Clare Lopeman

Gabrielle Mowat

Ivan Pecorari

Chiara Tommencioni Pisapia

Linn Phyllis Seeger

Sylvia (Zhiping) Xiao

What does it mean to speak to each other?

What does it mean to listen?

This two-day LAHP-funded workshop explores Critical Spatial Dialogue as a site and condition of contemporary research within and across art, design, architecture, and the humanities.

Conceived and led by the Fiction Feeling Frame research collective at the Royal College of Art.

What is the space of critical dialogue – metaphorically, and literally? Phonemes and vibrations and gestures? The materiality and sociality of air, of breath, of mouth, of tongue, of body, of hands, of signs, of smiles, of utterance, of noises, of glances, of blinks, of walls, of chairs, of audience, of fans, of interviews, of motions, of walking, of movements, of meaning, of value, of reciprocity, of names, of in-common, of translation, of biographies, of lost futures, of desire, of I’m sorry, of can you repeat that, of I understand, of I know what you mean, and of, and of, and of.

Within this and of, and of, and of that expands with each breath, this 2-day workshop explores what might be at stake for research within and across art, design, architecture, and the humanities in its relation to critical (spatial) dialogues.

Day One - 9 March 2023

First, a research lecture by Dr David Burns and Dr Adam Kaasa exploring the outcomes of RELAY, a commission by Fiction Feeling Frame for the 2021 Venice Biennale of Architecture that was an experimental global durational/dialogical performance over 24 hours.

Second we experiment together through two collaborative performance-based spatial exercises to help collectively define the struggles and possibilities of critical dialogue.

Day Two - 10 March 2023

Day two invites all participants to perform in RELAY: RCA, a follow up from the work in Venice. Participants will engage in a ‘chain-reaction’ relayed conversation, two at a time, with one person dropping out, and a new person joining, until all participants have moved through the conversation.

This is a mode of long conversation, enacted through and by multiple people, and multiple backgrounds/ projects/ disciplines.

Invited Respondents

Ifor Duncan

Ifor Duncan is Lecturer in the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths. He is a writer, artist and inter-disciplinary researcher with a specific focus on the overlaps of political violence with degrading watery spaces, processes, and materialities. Ifor completed his PhD entitled Hydrology of the Powerless at the Centre for Research Architecture (CRA), Goldsmiths, and was postdoctoral fellow in the Environmental Humanities at the New Institute Centre for the Environmental Humanities (NICHE), Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice (2020-22), and has taught in the School of Architecture at the Royal College of Art.

Rosa Whiteley

Rosa Whiteley is an architectural researcher and designer based in London. She works between ecology, architecture and geopolitics, analysing how the world is built through toxic flows and how those flows, in turn, organize us. Rosa currently tutors in Media Studies at the Royal College of Art (RCA) School of Architecture. She holds an MA in Architecture from the RCA and a BA in Architecture from the Manchester School of Architecture. Since 2019, Rosa has worked as a researcher and project manager within Cooking Sections, who use food as a lens and tool to observe landscapes in transformation.

Conveners

Adam Kaasa

Adam's work moves between space, facilitation, and performance. Their research ranges from the architectural and urban modernity of Mexico, to the politics of language in space, the design of cultural infrastructure, and social inequalities in the city. Current work includes ‘Queer Loss’, a multi-disciplinary project on spatial and embodied emotions of change, and ‘Critical Dialogues’, a practice-based project on the spatial design and curation of communication and dialogue. Adam is particularly invested in collaboration and co-authorship as an intellectual ethic, and in exploring the possibilities of radical facilitation for collective thought and action. Adam is Senior Tutor (Research) at the Royal College of Art, Co-Founder and former Director of Theatrum Mundi, and a co-founder of the Fiction Feeling Frame research collective.

David Burns

David Burns works in media and space. His current research examines the role of media in the historiographies of sites of nuclear colonialism. His practice spans photography, site specific sculpture, and spatial intervention, in addition to curation and convening. For two decades David has written and led transdisciplinary curricula in architecture, art, and design. From 2009-2015 he was the inaugural Director of Photography and Situated Media at UTS (Sydney) and currently leads Media Studies at the Royal College of Art School of Architecture. He is co-founder of the N curatorial collective and the Fiction Feeling Frame research collective.