Armina Pilav (Marie-Curie Research Fellow at the Chair of Methods and Analysis, Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft)
Sarajevo: Material Mediation and Survival Body
The aim of the lecture is to propose open methods of analysis of the production and reproduction of space in Sarajevo during the war (1992-1996) as a result of military operations and citizens’ reaction to it. It is a research process that employs different media to create analytical tools and reflective project on the issue of materiality of these entangled spaces, body adaptation and human relations within, codes of knowledge formed on the edge of military war and citizens un-war activities. Our time distance to the end of the Sarajevo siege and the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1995/1996) allows us to conceive Sarajevo in the wartime as experimental and dynamic space that produced forms of spatial and human systems. During the siege of Sarajevo landscape, neighbourhoods, streets, buildings, flats or even rooms were used as transitional spaces, between military operations aiming to destroy or defend and citizens’ everyday activities trying to protect themselves and normalise their life. These spaces were made at any scale by military operations and citizens’ reactions to it, transversally, in the ground, under the buildings, on and above the ground, through the walls, without specific spatial order or aesthetics, using available natural and artificial materials. Next to the research, there is a pedagogical intention of the overall research to propose analytical, visual, and spatial languages focusing on the material world of the Sarajevo period in question and non-violent citizens’ adaptive reaction to the war destruction.
Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1703263089759053/
Biography:
Armina Pilav’s research and practice is looking at the un-war spaces, transitional architectures, ecologies of transformations of the space and society in relation to wartime and postwar conditions. Currently she is Marie Curie postdoctoral research fellow and educator at the TU Delft Faculty of Architecture at the Chair of Methods and Analysis. She is co-tutoring a non-academic and itinerary (un)learning program I-TEAM, organized by Relais Culture Europe (Paris), with locations in Mostar, Sarajevo, Leipzig, Tunisia, Izmir and Paris. Armina is a member of the Association for Culture and Art Crvena from Sarajevo. She relies on the processes of collective creation of the knowledge in academic and non-academic (un)learning environments employing visual media and architectonic materials, feminist working approach, x-media analysis, source based and eco-social design in (re)production of the space and society. Next to the research, publishing and teaching activities, Armina develops visual works and co-seminars, individually and collectively, such as ‘State out of Order’ – covert lecture and collective intervention by Crvena at the international conference ‘New Political Mythologies and Art’ in Ljubljana (2016). Armina exhibits crossing architecture and art practices at the conferences, festivals and international exhibitions such as Venice Biennale of Architecture.
Blurring Boundaries: Reconsidering the Urban Inside
This year’s City Seminar Series will convene a range of thinkers to consider the people, spaces and processes that have the potential to redefine the established centres and foci of urban theory, research and power. It will draw on examples from across the world where new urban constellations of people and things are emerging that challenge our received notions of where the limits of the city lie, as well as the people and things that constitute their insides.
More information, including the full term card can be found both on the Martin Centre website and on the City Seminar Facebook Page
From next year onwards, we will have a new set of City Seminar convenors, along with a new theme and exciting set of speakers researching the broad questions of cities, urbanisation and urban life. Look out for updates from them and if you wish to become involved in organising City Seminar in some capacity, please contact us here