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Educational Modernism or Learning from the Darkroom of Architecture
The recent project Educational Modernism is about photography investigating (Canadian) educational modernism and university architecture within a shift from modernism to neoliberalism. Our previous research has lead us to this project: over the last years we devised projects about post-war university campuses that exemplify the architecture of “educational modernism” in the USA ("On Horizons", Bronx Community College, New York, 2015 - 2017; "Bronzeville", IIT Campus, Chicago, 2005), Canada ("Events Are Always Original", SFU Vancouver, 2010), and in Europe ("Trophies of Excellence", Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University,Frankfurt, 2014 –2016).
Based on our artistic practice that focuses on the photographic and spatial representation of urban landscapes, architecture, and public space, our works delve into the relationship of modernity, urbanism, and social change. Our photographic and installation works are rooted in an exploration of the history, politics, and aesthetics of architecture and the city, and the image-politics, of their visual representations.
This research and photographic project aims to investigate the architectural and spatial conditions that reflect the tension between educational modernism and the neoliberalization of educational institutions and to stimulate a discussion regarding the public role and representation of (Canadian) modernist universities. The guiding questions will be: How are the aspirations, politics and transformations of educational institutions expressed through architecture and its photographic representations; In what ways do these campuses reflect, obscure, and foreground the cultural and social place of universities in (Canadian) society/in societies today?
Image courtesy of the speakers.
Contact:
finearts | finearts@uleth.ca