Curated and produced by Arianna Deane, Andrea Chiney, and Ashely Kuo of A+A+A
Narratives of Persistence convenes seven projects which each explore the question: How to do things with architecture? This inquiry draws on J.L. Austin's linguistic philosophy in How to Do Things with Words—specifically, the idea that "to say something is to do something." The featured projects also explore "performativity"—a concept adopted by various fields such as feminist, queer, and gender theory, as well as economic sociology and architecture, which explains how persistent individual actions shape our present reality. In this philosophical context, overlapped with our present socio-political reality, we wonder: does architecture have a role to play? The artists and designers in the Social Architecture Track answer this question with acts of persistence. By building embodied and constructed social action to reshape our understanding of space and place as it relates to identity, institutions, and sustainability, each of the seven presented projects creates a bold present reality.
Immersive video from the People’s Beach at Riis Park and an ephemeral sand model of its recently demolished hospital building conjure spaces of queer sanctuary that are under threat. Against our Erosion stands as an oral history and as a performance of resistance and recognition of LGBTQ culture in New York. This sits physically opposite to Identity Discontinuity, a digital sculpture of racial census data that dissects U.S. governmental constructions of race over 230 years to critique the flattening of multi-hyphenate culture and the oversimplification of identities.
When institutions fail to recognize personhood, sanctuaries are built on the community level—be it via beach organizers at Riis Park, or in the form of a thoughtfully designed space to support immigrant workers. The Hub - Shifting Gears builds safe space by giving workers in the cleaning, construction, and delivery industries a place of dignity, where carefully designed furniture offers them an opportunity for support, rest, and connection. Along these lines, E.x.P.A.t approaches institutional critique by satirizing the bureaucratic and dehumanizing experience of airports, DMVs, and customs.
The following projects consider how space is made not only through individuals or institutions, but through processes of material transformation, construction, and connection to land. Gusset Palace presents a threshold built of scrap materials collected across New York City, revealing the beauty in circularity, and telling stories based on what the building industry throws away. Beyond mining the city, the Communication Totem embodies practices of building through modules that connect to land and cultural traditions in the jungles of Puerto Rico: from CMU to site-specific clay, and instruments that channel the wind. Arteriogenesis: Cusp Pavilion offers a sensitive approach to land-based art and space making that is adaptable and regenerative, connecting the fire-scarred landscapes of Topanga Canyon to New York, and reconnecting the human body back to the environs that sustain us.
Together, the works in Narratives of Persistence offer institutional critique, while simultaneously offering constructions of hope. They ask us, “Beyond the walls of this glass atrium, what could we changeif we build , dismantle , or protect something together—in a collective act of persistence?”