Elise Misao Hunchuck: Air - online lecture of gallery VI PER

The Slovak National Uprising Square in Bratislava has historically been a venue for countless protests and entertainment events. In 2013, Slovak artist Ilona Németh enveloped its space in dense fog, giving rise to a previously unrecognized change in the atmosphere of this place, both literally, in a physical sense, and metaphorically, in a psychological sense. After all, climate change now holds a dual significance in our current situation: it can refer to a shift in collective ideological or mental settings as well as to the geophysical drama unfolding across our entire planet. An open question remains about how to perceive these changes in atmosphere as consequences of intentional or accidental interventions in areas like design and architecture. How does architecture influence temperature, mood, or ambiance, the very politics of atmosphere? Can it touch that most ephemeral element of natural architecture, namely air?

In this conversation, we are joined by Elise Misao Hunchuck, who currently teaches in the ADS7 studio at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London. She will clarify her approach to the interrelationships between architecture and atmosphere, as well as the positions of her colleagues and students. The designs of the ADS7 studio express a fearless understanding of the current situation, leading one to believe that "something is truly in the air": specifically, the change in atmosphere in the field of designing built environments.

Elise Misao Hunchuck is a Berlin-based researcher, editor, and educator who studied landscape architecture, philosophy, and geography. Her interdisciplinary research, which has taken her to Canada, Japan, China, Europe, Russia, and Ukraine, includes methods based on maps, photographs, and texts that document, examine, and archive relationships between materials, resources, infrastructures, natural processes, humans, and more-than-humans. She is a professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London, teaches at the RCA, and at the University of Toronto, and is a member of the editorial board of the journal Scapegoat.

The event will take place online via Zoom
Meeting ID: 976 5794 5084

With growing questions around climate change and human impact on nature, we decided to focus the lecture series in 2020 on related themes. The concept and selection of speakers was prepared for the VI PER gallery by philosopher Lukáš Likavčan. The series titled Architectures of Nature will host three evenings featuring contributions from contemporary architecture theorists, for whom Likavčan has chosen a unified theme: How architecture speaks into the construction of nature. Soil. Water. Air.