End Date : December 10, 1:00 pm
Please visit http://heymancenter.org/events/storytelling-and-spatial-violence/ to register.
You will be sent a Zoom link the day before, and the day of, the event.
Co-organized by Maria Gonzalez Pendas with Nisrin Elamin, Naeem Mohaiemen, and Dimitris Antoniou
The Public Humanities Initiative at the SOF/Heyman
The Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Public Humanities Initiative, the Center for Spatial Research, the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University.
Please join us for a film and discussion series on the impacts of gentrification, development, and other forms of spatial violence. The Public Humanities Initiative at the SOF/Heyman presents four events exploring architectural and territorial planning as instruments of violence, and the activists that seek to use visual and narrative storytelling as a way to reclaim spatial rights. The films we will highlight not only serve to reflect on the contemporary global context of spatial violence, they also serve as instances where artistic and humanistic production engage in spatial activism.
Panels feature the film’s director/producer in discussion with architectural historians, sociologists, and others. All films will be available to registrants for the 24 hours preceding the scheduled panel time.
Please click here to register for the series. You will be sent a Zoom link the day before, and the day of, the event.
Co-organized by Maria Gonzalez Pendas with Nisrin Elamin, Naeem Mohaiemen, and Dimitris Antoniou
Co-sponsored by the Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Public Humanities Initiative, the Center for Spatial Research, the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University.
Scheduled Panels
Not in My Neighbourhood | 2018 | 86 mins
November 12th, 6:00pm EST
Not in My Neigbourhood tells the intergenerational stories of the ways in which ordinary citizens respond to the policies, process, and institutions driving contemporary forms of spatial violence and gentrification in three self-professed world-class cities: Cape Town, New York, and São Paulo.
Exploring the effects of various forms of spatial violence on the spirit and social-psyche of city dwellers, we follow the daily struggles, trials and triumphant moments of active citizens, fighting for the right to their cities. By illuminating the tools and approaches used by urban activists to shape and navigate their cities that have been affected by colonization, architectural apartheid and gentrification, the film aims to build solidarity among active urban citizens.
Director Kurt Orderson (Azania Rising Productions, South Africa) and co-producer Najma Nuriddin (Nsorma Films) will participate in a panel discussion with sociologist Sujatha Fernandes (University of Sydney) and architectural historian Anooradha Siddiqi (Barnard College).
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Forensic Architecture | Selection of short films
November 19th, 6:00pm EST
The exact slate of films for this panel are still being finalized.
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The Concrete Revolution | 2004 | 61 mins
December 3rd, 4:00pm EST
Part objective documentary, part personal essay, on the surface this film charts the transformation of Beijing as it prepares for the 2008 Olympic Games. In order to present a modern glossy face to the world, one where shiny new buildings and icons of western consumerism are rapidly built and pushed to the foreground, the Chinese government prefers to hide the hardship of the people constructing the new image, and that of the disappearing world of its culture-carrying elders.
Electing to focus beneath the facade, this intelligent and important work bravely exposes the unseen changes in values and the social costs being paid, especially those of the peasant construction workers of the new China. Told through the contrast of individual’s stories with elements of retrospective context, the film functions as a feminine poem on a macho subject using a clever mix of colour and black & white film, stills, snippets of media newsflash and even quotes and songs from Maoist China.
Xiaolu Guo, writer and director in conversation with architectural historian María González Pendás (SOF/Heyman, Columbia University) and others.
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Third Kind | 2018 | 21 mins
December 10th, 12:00pm EST
This event is hosted by the The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Public Humanities Initiative and the University Seminar in Modern Greek
Director Yorgos Zois will participate in a panel discussion following a screening of Third Kind, a sci-fi film that invites us to contemplate ruination, nostalgia for a future-present, economies of abandonment, and collateral populations and spaces. The film considers the refugee crisis in Greece from the perspective of an alien future and through the abandoned Ellinikon airport—a former camp that was violently evacuated to facilitate a large development project. In narrating such spatial and social histories of dispossession, Zois frames this tale as follows: “Earth has been abandoned for a long time and the human race has found refuge in outer space. Three archaeologists return to Earth to investigate where a mysterious five tone signal is coming from…»
Yorgos Zois, film director in conversation with anthropologists George Μantzios (University of Toronto) and Dimitris Antoniou (SNFPHI, Columbia University)
