Talk

Critical Spatial Practice: Elke Krasny

Time: October 2, 2019
Place: ROM for kunst og arkitektur, Room for Art & Architecture, Maridalsveien 3, 0178 Oslo

Title of lecture:
The Playground in Feminist and Decolonial Thought

With the general neoliberalization of life all work and no play has shifted to all play is work. Given the Oslo Triennale’s radical suggestion of linking new forms of play to the concept of degrowth, it is of interest to reflect on how taking back play can, or could, be a viable form of resistance against the biopolitical paradigm of neoliberal capitalism and its exhausting 24/7 ideology.

Historically, the playground developed as a pedagogical site not merely dedicated to children’s play, but much rather teaching children the right way of playing. Who’s taking the children to the playground while parents are at work? Which parts of the world are considered their playground by those who are in power? How can we start envisioning or dreaming new forms of play given the historically gendered and racialized ideas of the playground?

Elke Krasny, PhD, professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Her scholarship focuses on critical practices in architecture, urbanism, and art addressing ecology, economy, labor, memory, and feminisms. Her exhibition Hands-on Urbanism. The Right to Green was shown at the 2012 Venice Biennale of Architecture. Edited volumes include Critical Care. Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet with Angelika Fitz (MIT Press, 2019), and In Reserve! The Household with Regina Bittner (Spector Books, 2016). Recent essays include ‘Citizenship and the Museum: On Feminist Acts’ (2017), and ‘Divided We Share: On the Ethics and Politics of Public Space’ (2019).

The lecture is organized in cooperation with MAPS (MFA Art & Public Space; KHIO – Oslo National Academy of the Arts) and ROM, Room for Art and Architecture, Oslo and OAT (Oslo Architecture Triennale).