After successful completion of the course, students are able to develop scientific questions at the intersection of architecture and instersectionality and elaborate them with appropriate methods. This praparation for basic research and artistic research will be demonstrated with a seminar work of 40,000 characters. 

Image left: Mierle Ukeles Laderman (artist), "Manifesto for Maintenance Art"; image right: activist collective migrantas

Who Maintains the City?
Work, Gender, Migration and the City.

Reproductive labor plays an important role for the city: our current life in the city is unthinkable without the cleaning of our houses, offices and streets, without the care work for elderly and sick inhabitants, or without childcare.  

The COVID-19 Pandemic gives center stage to this kind of labor and sheds light on its contradictions. It shows our society’s economic and existenital dependency on un- and underpaid reproductive labor; as well as the exploitative working conditions of this kind of work. Importantly, a large part of this, now called, essential work is mainly done by women and/or migrants!

In this seminar, we will try to understand the complex relations between reproductive labor in the city, gender and migration. We will do so by investigating the different aspect relating to the topic and drawing connections between them. For this purpose, we will discuss and analyse the works of artists, cultural theorists, geographers, activists and urban planners.

The seminar is based on affirmative pedagogics (according to Rosi Braidotti). 

The main elements are text, book and lecture discussions, excursions, discursive development of individual interrogation, which also involves methods of drawing. Workshops will allow us to practice the handling of scientific sources, good scientific practice and writing abstracts. Individual meetings are possible if necessary. 

Details will be announced at the first meeting. 

16. October 10-12 Introduction 

23. October 10-12 online 

6. November 10-13 Exhibition visit "Nach der Flucht"
https://initiative.minderheiten.at/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Nach-der-Flucht_Folder.pdf

13. November 10-12 online 

20. November 10-12 online 

4. December 10-13 Exkursion

11. December 10-12 online 

18. December 10-12 online 

8. January 10-13 Presentation of students' works

15. January 10-12 online 

22. January 10-12 online 

29. January 10-12 online 

Presence, active participation in the seminar and elaboration of an individual seminar work of about 40,000 characters. 

Each seminar requires reading text in advance. Texts will be provided at least one weak before the text discussion (uploaded in TISS). 

Main course literature:  

Mierle Ukeles Laderman (Artist): Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969! & Touch Sanitation (1979-80)

Andreas Petrossiants: Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ Maintenance and/as (Art) Work
https://www.pismowidok.org/en/archive/2018/21-invisible-labor/mierle-laderman-ukeles-maintenance-andas-art-work

Ila Bêka & Louise Lemoine: Koolhaas Houselife

Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory,
Practicing Solidarity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003)

Elke Krasny: WORKING TOGETHER: TOWARD IMAGINED COOPERATION IN RESISTANCE

Bell Hooks: “Homeplace:A Site of Resistance.” In Yearning: Race,
Gender, and Cultural Politics. Boston, MA: South End Press, 41 – 49., 1990

Parrenas, Rhacel. S. 2008. The Force of Domesticity: Filipina Migrants
and Globalisation. New York: New York University Press.
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/100993/3/Race_space_and_architecture.pdf)

Vergès, Françoise. 2019. “Capitalocene, Waste, Race, and Gender.” e-flux
journal, no.100,
https://www.e-flux.com/journal/100/269165/capitalocene-waste-race-and-gender.

The Grand domestic Revolution GOES ON at Casco, Utrecht
https://casco.art/en/archive/the-grand-domestic-revolution-goes-on-0

Jenny Richards: “We Build Families - The Aesthetics of Domestic Labour” in Critical
Cities 4, London: Myrdle Court Press, 2014.

Tithi Bhattacharya: Social Reproduction Theory. Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression

Doina Petrescu and Kim Trogal: THE SOCIAL (Re)PRODUCTION OF ARCHITECTURE. POLITICS, VALUES AND ACTIONS IN CONTEMPORARY PRACTICE

Field: 7 "Becoming a Feminist Architect" http://field-journal.org/portfolio-items/field-7-becoming-a-feminist-architect/ 

We will read texts in English and hope that you are interested in inclusive architectures.