About the Event
Join us the kickoff lecture in our Engaging Pluralism lecture series on Wednesday, January 25 at 5:30 p.m. at MD Anderson Hall.
Plantation Plots: What are our Decolonizing Designs?
The plantation is both architecture and the story we tell about it—place and plot. Sylvia Wynter describes the plantation as the master design for race and socioeconomics for the Americas. However, “plot” for Wynter also refers to the tiny piece of land allocated to Black people on the plantation. There-in Black people cultivated not only survival, but also epistemologies and connections to land, joy, love, and resistance. In the plot, Katherine McKittrick provocatively suggests, the plantation bears a Black future. This talk will build upon offerings by Black feminist architects and writers, to consider decolonizing designs across multiple meanings of the word “plot”: the narrative arc of a story, a plot of land, a conspiracy, and an architectural plan. K. Wayne Yang will touch on examples such as the Indigenous Futures Institute, Earthseed Laboratories, and the Land Relationships Super Collective. Attendees will be invited to converse about our own plots / decolonizing designs.
K. Wayne Yang writes about decolonization and everyday epic organizing, particularly from underneath ghetto colonialism, often with his frequent collaborator, Eve Tuck, and sometimes for an avatar called la paperson.
Engaging Pluralism
When ideologies and cultures collide, new ways of working with and living in the world emerge. As a form of political philosophy, pluralism draws upon this dynamic condition, promoting the coexistence of multiple approaches and worldviews. Yet in the context of compounding crises and unchecked inequality, this is far from a neutral position: it becomes a commitment to struggle and discourse. Drawing from a broad-ranging group of speakers, Rice Architecture’s annual lecture series, Engaging Pluralism, explores how architects and designers can work with friction, contradiction, and multiplicity to effect broader social, cultural, and environmental change. It is an all-school platform for reflecting on the possibilities and challenges of designing for a pluralistic society.
All lectures are free and open to the public and, unless noted otherwise, will be held in person in Farish Gallery, MD Anderson Hall, with a livestream component. In the event that COVID-19 circumstances prohibit in-person lectures, the series will be held virtually via Zoom. Each lecture has been submitted for AIA CES approval.
This lecture series is made possible through the generous support of the Betty R. and George F. Pierce Jr., FAIA, Fund; the William B. Coleman Jr. Colloquium Fund for Architecture; the Wm. W. Caudill Lecture Series Fund; and Rice Design Alliance (RDA), the public programs and outreach arm of Rice Architecture, which includes the generous support of its members and RDA Underwriters: Harvey | Harvey-Cleary; Tellepsen Family; Big State Electric; Brochsteins; CED Houston; MAREK; Turner Construction; and Walter P. Moore. Additional support is provided by the Texas Commission on the Arts.
