ARCH 403 (2): Watkin Degree Project Seminar

The Non-Aligned Exhibition’

On the fringes of the curatorial canon are exhibitions like the First Biennale of Arab Art in Baghdad, the International Architecture Congress opened by Fidel Castro in Cuba,  the desert installations of Noah Purifoy, and the human-landscapes of Ana Mendieta. In opposition to the genealogies traditionally produced in Western institutions are South-South conversations, non-aligned shows and non-participant exhibitors; these outliers contest the center by advocating for the reimagining of the exhibition space and its contents. This course examines the exhibition as an architectural project and an architectural space. Exhibitions are the language and tool of the architect. From group reviews to installations and retrospectives, the exhibition is both the space that architecture creates and the space where it is contested. This seminar looks at the exhibition as the basis of comparative architecture thought, through the lens of non-alignment. The seminar will examine the architectural exhibition as a mode of representation and a tool for promoting ideas, sometimes compelling and sometimes contradictory, where the content can be misaligned with the values and ideologies that sponsor them. The 'Non-aligned Exhibition' explores the histories and practices that exist outside the traditional Western exhibition space, constructing a genealogy of left-overs and set-asides, asking what role architectural exhibitions play today and what role they occupy amidst peripheral spaces and global aspirations.