Estonian Centre of Architecture (Põhja pst 27a, Tallinn).
Start Date:
15.02.2016
End Date:
21.02.2016
Next week, this public discussion series will seek to present an understanding of architecture as an agent at the heart of civic debate establishing a sphere of visibility and publicity – explaining contemporary challenges of built environment and role of the architect in making structures public. The talks will be public and open to everybody; the event series will be in English.
In 1980s, the environmental protests both rejected the mass-industrialization of our local resources and galvanized the Estonian independence movement. Analyzing that historical precedent as a starting point, the focus of the discussion will shift to contemporary developments. The talks will inquire into range of issues enabling connections between politics, civic processes, technological developments and built infrastructures in order to establish an understanding of the complex phenomena as space for architectural interventions to deal with its consequences.
The focus on the Phosphorite Debate
With invited designers, planners, paleo-ecologist, environmental activists, geologists and representatives of the mining industry, the panel discussions will focus on society’s relationship with mining – how Estonia and the Baltic Region relate to its mineral resources and the industries involved. Our round table discussions will trace the ideas relating society to its material space and resources. Both extremes of this debate – the condition of mining and not-mining – consist of their inherent material and immaterial infrastructures, technologies and strategic argumentation where visionary thinking meets provisionary control of the environment, while creating complex material, bureaucratic, political, civic conditions to enable or disable the process.
As a result, we seek to render out an operative image or a diagram charting those two opposites, the conditions of mining and not mining with the aim to understand their interrelations as specific parameters for possible further formulations of architectural agendas and ideas on modes of intervention possible in the region.
The Phosphorite Debate is a part of the Baltic Pavilion conceptual framework – the project representing the Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania at the 2016 La Biennale di Venezia International Architecture Exhibition, and the talks programme is led by Johan Tali (Estonia), Jonas Žukauskas (Lithuania), Jurga Daubaraite (Lithuania), Petras Isora (Lithuania), Niklāvs Paegle (Latvia) and Dagnija Smilga (Latvia) from the Baltic Pavilion curatorial team.
The week-long series of talks is organized with support from The Estonian Academy of Arts Department of Architecture and Estonian Center of Architecture, funded by the Cultural Endowment Fund of Estonia.
The events are all in English and take place in the venue rooms of Estonian Centre of Architecture (Põhja pst 27a, Tallinn).
Time schedule and more info on Facebook.
For more info:
Johan Tali
johan.tali@gmail.com