Curatorial Team
The travelling exhibition, Expanding Agency: Women, Race and the Dissemination of Modern Architecture, offers a critical path towards reconsidering who is recognised in the making of architectural history. By foregrounding women and racialised communities, the travelling exhibition, curated by architectural historian Kathleen James Chakraborty at the University of Dublin, reveals how architecture is also shaped through education, journalism, advocacy, patronage, networks, communication and other forms of professional and public engagement. Bringing this enquiry into the Indian context, Expanding Agency and Archival Silences: Gender in the Built Environment, invites us to ask whose agency is recognised, recorded, ignored, and what forms of practice remain outside conventional architectural histories.
Thus, the Omitted from History Project (OMHI) delves into the questions of archival silences, and the Women of Vaastukala Archive (WoVA) brings the lived experiences of women practitioners from across India into dialogue. Together, with VIT School of Architecture’s panel discussion on journeys of diverse “women” architectural practitioners, and PATIO Network’s critical take on “exhibiting architecture in South Asia”, this collective of practices is creating a framework in which expanding agency is not simply about adding the omitted voices to an existing architectural history. It is about expanding the horizon of getting to know architecture; rethinking ways it can be encountered, documented, discussed and practised.
Read more from the curatorial note here.
Exhibition Opening: 11am | Fri, 4 Sep
Exhibition Timings: 11am – 7pm | Fri, 4 Sep – Tue, 8 Sep
Exhibition on Show Until: 7pm | Tue, 8 Sep
Walkthroughs:
5pm | Fri, 4 Sep
4pm | Sat, 5 Sep
4:30pm | Sun, 6 Sep
Gender in the Built Environment | 6:30pm – 8pm | Fri, 4 Sep
A panel discussion to launch the event, discussing the exhibition and supporting programmes.
Her Labour | 11:30am – 1:30pm | Sat, 5 Sep
This roundtable public workshop explores how we can contribute to building awareness and solidarity with women construction workers, across the barriers of gender and class.
Women Shaping Architecture in India | 11:30am – 1pm | Sun, 6 Sep
This panel brings together practitioners to reflect on their professional journeys and the changing cultures of architectural practice.
A Dialogue Beyond the Blueprints | 5pm – 7:30pm | Sun, 6 Sep
This workshop explores the creation of a manifesto for feminist spatial pedagogies, as a co-created framework that can critically transform how space and place-making are taught and practised, both regionally and globally.
Led by Professor Kathleen James-Chakraborty, this project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No. 101019419).
In collaboration with:
Venue: Gallery
Curatorial Team
Ishita Shah
Ishita Shah is trained as an interior designer and architectural historian. Over the last decade, she has developed a community-based curatorial practice focused on cultural preservation across India and South Asia, including Constructing Personal Archives, an incubation program for aspiring archivists, and the Women of Vaastukala Archive, a digital oral history repository, both under her collective, Curating for Culture. She currently consults as archivist/curator with the Pattani Archives, Glenmorgan Estate, and Anthology A+C, and is a recipient of several fellowships.
Meenakshi Jayan
Meenakshi Jayan is a Gender Studies researcher working at the intersection of gender, culture, and public life. She is currently associated with the Women of Vaastukala Archives project, working across research and curatorial initiatives with an interest in documenting everyday experiences and bringing overlooked narratives into public conversation.
Sarah Melsens
Sarah Melsens is an architect and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at CNRS and FLAME University, Pune, researching the history and ethnography of architecture and construction in colonial and postcolonial India. She co-edits the journals Architecture Beyond Europe (ABE Journal) and Construction History, and is a founding trustee of the Pune Architectural History Archive. She has taught at various architecture colleges in India, including CEPT University, and co-founded the scholarly network Platform for Architectural Transfers in the Indian Ocean rim (PATIO).
You might also like
