Domesticity and colonialism
The space of colonialism
Monday 5 November 2018 6.30 - 8pm
The Benjamin West Lecture Theatre, Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy of Arts
£15, £9 concessions
Our panel of architects and researchers will examine how colonialism has shaped contemporary domestic space from Iran to Puerto Rico.
In a broad sense, architecture has always been inseparable from politics. It shapes identities and forms behaviours, and is often used in the interests of those in power. However, architecture also has the potential to subvert these intentions and to reappropriate space. In this series of talks, we look at the political potential of architecture through the lens of colonialism.
Despite architecture and colonialism being widely explored in architectural history, the domestic dimension of this connection is often considered marginal or unimportant. Instead, the focus has been on how colonial powers affect cities and urban space. Yet the way these powers operate within the intimate environment of the home can have an immediate impact on perceptions surrounding gender, family relationships and sexuality, both within the societies of the coloniser and the colonised.
Our panel will look at the similarities and differences in domestic space from Iran to Eelam/Sri Lanka and Puerto Rico, exploring how they have been shaped by both post-colonial and colonial conditions.
Speakers:
Flora Hergon is a Master’s student in Sociology and Gender studies at EHESS in Paris. Her research examines the spatial, disciplinary and gendered effects of police home searches and house arrests in the context of the French state of emergency.
Samaneh Moafi is an architect and researcher based between the UK and Iran. She holds a PhD from the Architectural Association and is a Research Fellow at Forensic Architecture. Her work examines natural environments and realms of domesticity as apparatuses of governance.
Sinthujan Varatharajah is an essayist, researcher and Phd student in Political Geography at UCL. He is an Open City Fellow of the Open Society Foundation in Berlin, advocating for the inclusion of refugees in policy-making procedures in the EU city level. Varatharajah has immersed himself in the Tamil political scene, working with campaigning organisations seeking a solution to the war in Eelam/Sri Lanka.
Shela Sheikh (chair) is Lecturer in the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, where she convenes the MA Postcolonial Culture and Global Policy. Her research interrogates various forms of witnessing, between the human, technological and environmental. She is currently working on a multi-platform research project around colonialism, botany and the politics of planting.
The Space of Colonialism series is guest curated by Léopold Lambert and The Funambulist, a bi-monthly magazine dedicated to the politics of space and bodies.