The Studio’s Sarah Takes Homescapes to RCA Media Studio

Homescapes#2 at the RCA continues the work started in Homesacpes #1, in Pittsburgh will explore the notion of home as something we carry with us; as we travel, go about the day to day, move from one country to another. Working with film, making and performance, this workshop explored what it is to arrive, move through and settle, briefly, in a place. We used movement as a way exploring the everyday rituals we associate with home.

We will consider responses to new places and how to make a new home. Home is seen as something which is carried internally, manifesting in memory, and which is externalized through what Anne-Marie Fortier, in Re-Membering Places, calls embodied movements. For our purposes these could be everyday practices: making food, playing music, dancing… wearing particular clothing; practices and performances by which we inhabit the city and re-create worlds, and via which others have inhabited before us. We consider, using fictional speculation, how these become part of the evolution of our cities through the process of cultural exchange.

We will seek to capture embodied movements, taking Laban’s Kinesphere as a point of reference we will bring gesture, making and marking together, working with the things we find. We will move and record…We will also discuss via literature, film and theatre.

Asking:

What is it like it to arrive in a new place? How long does it take to belong?

What it was like, when you arrived? Was it raining?  Was it snowing? Was the sky grey or blue?... Was a storm brewing…?

We might wonder:

Why you left? What you left behind? Where you slept, that first night and if you felt safe?

Whether you:

Stayed. Made a life here. Became part of a community here.

What traces you left or will leave…

The city of London…or anywhere can become the stage for the stories we tell…

Pittsburgh - Homescapes Workshops

Bringing movement to the museum!

Whilst in Pittsburgh, to take in ‘Fields, Fragments. Fiction”, it was also a privilege to be invited to lead a workshop which accompanied the show. Thanks to Theo Issaias and Sarah Rafson, Curator of Public Programmes at Carnegie Mellon University, for entrusting me with this - it was pleasure! Thanks to Dana Bishop - Root, director of education and public programs at Carnegie Museum of Art for facilitating, and for use the wonderful Hall of Architecture.

Homescapes explored the notion of home as something we carry with us; as we travel, go about the day to day, move from one country to another. Working with film, making and performance, this workshop explored what it is to arrive, move through and settle, briefly, in a place. We used movement as a way exploring the everyday rituals we associate with home.

Participants ranged from students to tutors, practitioners and members of the public, all of whom engaged with me in this journey to explore home, memory and colour, inspired by the work of Zenghelis, her use of a colour palate, particularly in later work, which is synonymous with her home. We were also inspired by her of idea of architecture as her stage. Thank you everyone who came along!

The Hall of Architecture became our stage; together we brought movement and making to the Museum.

We are grateful to have been part of the 2021-2022 Sylvia & David Steiner Lecture Series at the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative inquiry. Thanks to Nica from the studio for joining us!

SA for Studio Aki

Pittsburgh - ‘Fields, Fragments, Fictions’ an Exhibition of work by Zoe Zenghelis

An honour to take part in a round table discussion with artist Zoe Zenghelis, a founding member of The office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and architect, educator Hamed Khosravi, as the New exhibition of
work by Zenghelis, ‘Fields, Fragments, Fictions’ opened at the Carnegie Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition was the culmination of a collaboration between the museum's Associate Curator, at the Heinz Architectural Center, Theodossis Issaias and Khosravi.

The studio’s Sarah was thrilled to be part of the conversation and to be commissioned to contribute an essay to the publication which accompanied the exhibition. Thank you Hamed and Theo for the generous invitation! This was the moment we met at The Carnegie Museum of Art after Zöe’s first view of the show.

'Once Upon A Pittsburgh' - Reviews at CMU, with Tommy Yang

Day 01 Reviews @CMU

While I was in Pittsburgh I had the pleasure of taking part in some student reviews at @cmusoa. Day one was Tommy Yang's second year studio 'Once Upon A Pittsburgh'.

'...where apparatus of storytelling is mobilized — towards resisting the erasure of identity, history, and existence.'

The studio views architecture as the thing which frames human life and its stories, so of course lots we find interesting. It views the stories we tell are the things which help us empathize, imagine, see another perspective; these narratives are a means of surviving, particularly for minority and marginalised communities.

The studio ‘explores how stories, myths, cinematography, animation, mapping, comics, and design can build an argument for an architecture for and of the people’ and aims to create ‘socio-ecologically resoluted, politically charged, geographically situated, and culturally woven architectural propositions.’

The context of Pittsburgh is a fascinating one (more to come on that) – historically its geographical topography has been mirrored in the organisation of the city and its architectural typologies, from the former steel warehouses which once lined the waterfront to the timber constructed houses which hug the dramatic hill gradients, with their characteristic porches, becoming ever grander as once rises out of the once smog filled river basin.

The student’s response to the challenge set by the context and the studio was incredibly rich, from animae to documentary, the student’s engaged with condition of contemporary Pittsburgh, with imagination and dexterity.