Reporting from which front? Aravena’s sexist opening panel
‘Meetings on Architecture’ gathered architects to discuss ‘Infrastructure’ at the opening of the 15th Architecture Biennale in Venice. A very prestigious panel indeed, but an all male panel. Not even your usual quota woman was invited. And there are really no excuse because Keller Easterling was in town and lectured next door. It is so bitter sweet that a biennial which curator claims to be political falls flat on its face and just reveal its true nature .
That the opening is celebrated by an all male panel, and one of established males reveal how little does the curatorial team cares for real issues and where the real front is. That there are no women, no people of color, no youth on this panel unveils the true colors of the call. One claims to be radical but is conservative, claims to be provocative but is reactionary, claims moral righteousness but is corporate, and claims to be social but is really financed by corporations. While some pavilions report from the real front (Germany with refugees crisis, Egypt with informal housing, etc…), could it be that the curatorial team of the Biennial itself is blind to what are the issues architecture is confronted with?
Architecture is not divorced from its context, and the fact that gender and race are matters disregarded by the curator of the 15th Architecture Biennal -or whoever put that panel together- only shows how little they understand of the challenges of our world, and more importantly, how little they care.
Usually, we at Die Architektin, do a body count of the male/female ratio of curators of the Pavilions to establish the usual score of parity at this important event. Simply by starting by an all male panel, Aravana just showed that again, architecture is a sexist profession. Reporting from which front? Not the front where the real battles happen…
Notes:
On Facebook, comments on the event have flourished.
Wouter Vantishoup wrote: ” Unbelievable indeed. The most politically ambitious Biennale ever has an all male panel; the usual bunch of mansplainers. With allowing this to happen the director symbolically excludes gender issues and female rights from the urban ‘front’ that he is reporting from. Oh and spare us the excuses, apologies, rationalisations: those have all been heard before. Please just change it, no words but deeds, as the suffragettes said, on what was a real front.”
Another person added a video link to this talk given by Aravena at the Holcim Forum.
Congrats, you have an all male panel! http://allmalepanels.tumblr.com/
Congrats, you have an all male panel! http://allmalepanels.tumblr.com/
The trending “radical” architectural rhetoric is as exclusive, white and male as all its other discourses. Especially problematic is the way in which these same people choose to talk on behalf of disenfranchised communities and groups, but exclude them as real authors and voices of that conversation. The illusion that they are “reshaping practices” is thinly veiled rubbish if the authors- the people making the decisions back in the studios- are not representative of their larger constituencies.
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in english-language wording we would say “people of color” instead of “colored people.” the first option sounds antiquated at best, as explained here: http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/03/30/295931070/the-journey-from-colored-to-minorities-to-people-of-color thank you for your important post about this issue! ❤
It’s edited 🙂
(37:55) “Lack of breast = Lack of integrity” = Lack of sense of humour and an abundance of sexism.
Architecture as a spatial conscioness is at risk of being sidelined.
Hahaha, in my best days as Director I got that the ESARQ (UIC Barcelona) was the architecture school with more female teachers percentage of the whole world history!: C.Balcells, E.Cánovas, S.deGiles, M.Domingo, A.Schachter, E.Gigantes, J.Leclerc, Monica Rivera, R.Rull, E.Prats, V.Garriga, A.Ramos, E.Rochi, M.Male, E.Mateu, E.Fernández, C.Mendoza, A.Giocoli, M.Vaquer, L.Planas, L.Valverde, M.Muñoz, K.Shanon, M.Tyler, J.Urbano, etc.,etc.,etc. Very much better atmosphere than the common male teachers’ schools 🙂
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