Thresholds 49: Supply

Launch event: Thresholds 49: Supply

MIT Architecture | Spring 2021 Lecture Series
6:00 PM, webcast

Thresholds 49: Supply takes stock of the ways that art and architecture have historically reflected, grounded, forecasted, and challenged the structures of supply. Contributions consider the term broadly: as both noun (reservoir, inventory, chain...) and verb (to equip, to fulfill, to endow…). They offer critical accounts of supply: its substance, systems of exchange, and the labor and technologies that enable and maintain it, from the catalog to the ledger, and the almanac to the algorithm. What is produced when art and architecture dream a world of infinite abundance? How do objects and spaces take shape in an economy of scarcity? How has interruption marked the history of supply, and how could supply suggest nourishment as much as extraction?

The issue includes contributions by Imani Jacqueline Brown, Hou Chi-Chia, Meg Duguid, Michael Faciejew, Gabriel Fuentes, Larissa Guimarães, Matthew Hockenberry, Mark Jarzombek, Jesse LeCavalier, Bin Li, Adam Longenbach, Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Jumana Manna, Ash Moniz, Galen Pardee, Vikramaditya Prakash, Thea Riofrancos, Veronica Smith, Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins, and jina valentine. 

Thresholds 49: Supply

Participants include

Editors:
B. Jack Hanly and Nina Wexelblatt 

Contributors:
Mark Jarzombek and Vikram Prakash (Office of (Un)Certainty Research)
Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins
Bin Li
jina valentine
Galen Pardee
Jesse LeCavalier

and Timothy Hyde

B. Jack Hanly is a second year PhD student in History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture at MIT. His work focuses on the exchanges between environmental knowledge and spatial practices in the 20th century, including resource extraction, construction and engineering, regional planning, and material epistemologies. He received a Master of Environmental Design from the Yale School of Architecture and a BA in Environmental and Urban Studies from Bard College.

Mark Jarzombek is Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture at MIT. He works on a wide range of topics both historical and theoretical. His publications include the groundbreaking textbook, A Global History of Architecture (Wiley Press, 2006) with co-author Vikramaditya Prakash and with the noted illustrator Francis D.K. Ching; Architecture of First Societies: A Global Perspective (Wiley Press, 2013); and Digital Stockholm Syndrome in the Post-Ontological Age (University of Minnesota Press, 2016). In 2018, Jarzombek and Prakash founded O(U)R, [Office for (Un)certainty Research].

Jesse LeCavalier (LECAVALIER R+D) explores the architectural and urban implications of contemporary infrastructure. He is the author of The Rule of Logistics: Walmart and the Architecture of Fulfillment (University of Minnesota Press, 2016) and is Associate Professor at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture at the University of Toronto, where he directs the PhD program. Previously, he was the Daniel Rose Visiting Assistant Professor at the Yale School of Architecture and a Sanders Fellow at the University of Michigan. His work has been exhibited at the Seoul Biennial, the Oslo Triennial, and the Museum of Modern Art.

Bin Li is an architect, landscape architect, and assistant professor at School of Architecture, Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. She is the founder of OfficeTransect, a design collaborative that draws in ‘sectional’ design research of architecture, landscape and geomorphology across scales and geographies. Bin taught at Oslo School of Architecture and Design, where she is currently earning her PhD. She holds an M.Arch from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Galen Pardee is a designer, educator, and researcher, and is currently the LeFevre Emerging Practitioner Fellow at The Ohio State University. He received his BA from Brandeis University and his M.Arch from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP). He has taught at Columbia University and Ohio State, and designed projects in New York City and California. His studio Drawing Agency explores dimensions of architectural advocacy, material economy, and expanded practice. His research projects have been funded by The Ohio State University, Columbia University GSAPP, and the Graham Foundation; and published in the Avery Review and FAKTUR, among others.

Vikramaditya Prakash is Professor and Associate Dean, College of Built Environments, University of Washington, Seattle. He works on modernism, postcoloniality, global history, and fashion and architecture. He is host of the ArchitectureTalk podcast and co-design lead at O(U)R: Office of (Un)certainty Research. His latest book, One Continuous Line: Art, Architecture and Urbanism of Aditya Prakash (Mapin, 2020) documents Indian modernism in a global frame. He is co-PI (with Mark Jarzombek) of Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grants for GAHTC Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative. He holds a B.Arch from Punjab University and both an MA and PhD from Cornell. He lives in Seattle with his wife and three children.

Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Bard College with interests in infrastructure, waste, environment, colonialism, austerity, and platform capitalism. Her first book, Waste Siege: The Life of Infrastructure in Palestine (Stanford, 2019), won the Middle East Studies Association’s Albert Hourani Book Award (2020). Her current book, Homing Austerity: Airbnb in Athens, examines how Airbnb and austerity are together transforming the relationship between subjectivity, real estate, labor, and aesthetics. Her work has also appeared in several journals and has received support from national and international funding agencies. More information about her work can be found at sophiastamatopoulourobbins.com.

jina valentine is a mother, visual artist, and Associate Professor of Printmedia at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her independent practice is informed by traditional craft techniques and interweaves histories latent within found texts, objects, narratives, and spaces. jina’s work involves language translation, mining content from material and digital archives, and experimental strategies for humanizing data-visualization. She is also co-founder (with artist Heather Hart) of Black Lunch Table, an oral history archiving project. Her work has received recognition and support from the Graham Foundation, Joan Mitchell Foundation, and Art Matters among others. jina received her BFA from Carnegie Mellon and her MFA from Stanford University.

Nina Wexelblatt is a doctoral student in History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture and Art at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on cybernetics and environmental systems in conceptual art of the 1960s and 1970s. Previously, she held curatorial positions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. She holds an MA in History of Art from Williams College and a BA in Literature from Yale University.