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Nikos Stangos Memorial Lecture 2024: Professor Lesley Lokko
10 October 2024, 6:15 pm–8:30 pm
UCL History of Art are delighted to announce that Professor Lesley Lokko will be our next Nikos Stangos lecturer. This event has been rescheduled from 9 May 2024.
This event is free.
Event Information
Open to
- All
Availability
- Yes
Cost
- Free
Organiser
-
Queenie Lee – History of Art
Location
-
G6, Archaeology Lecture Theatre31-34 Gordon SquareLondonWC1H 0PYUnited Kingdom
'Soft Scoop'
In the hard-nosed realm of international politics, ‘soft’ power is often referred to as the ability to co-opt rather than coerce, shaping preferences through appeal and attraction, rather than force. In 2010, the media company Monocle combined a range of statistical metrics to measure the soft power of 26 countries, using approximately 50 factors including the number of language schools, Olympic medals, the quality of architecture and business brands. Monocle’s Quality of Life Index has grown into an annual rundown of the top places to live in the world, dominated (predictably) by the global North, with a few exceptions like Sydney, Melbourne, and Auckland.
International exhibitions like the Venice Biennale are powerful ways to shape cultural capital and opinion. The Laboratory of the Future, the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, which opened in May 2023 tried to address hard-edged concerns such as decolonisation and decarbonisation within ‘soft’ power frameworks of narrative, aesthetics, and atmosphere, positioning imagination and creative enquiry as the most powerful tools of liberation. In this hour-long lecture, the exhibition curator, Prof Lesley Lokko, explores whether ‘soft’ is a useful or effective strategy for confronting the extremes of social, racial, and environmental inequity that characterise our times?
Lecture: G6 LT, 31-34 Gordon Square (18:15-19:45)
Reception: North Cloisters (19:45-20:30)
Image credit: Alix McIntosh
About the Speaker
Professor Lesley Lokko
Architect, educator and novelist. Founder and Chair at African Futures Institute (AFI)
Professor Lesley Lokko OBE is the Founder and Chair of the African Futures Institute (AFI) in Accra, Ghana. She holds a BSc (Arch), MArch and PhD in Architecture from the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. She was the Founder and Director of the Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg (2014—2019). She is the Editor of White Papers, Black Marks: Race, Culture, Architecture (University of Minnesota Press, 2000) and the Editor-in-Chief of FOLIO: Journal of Contemporary African Architecture.
She is currently a Visiting Professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture and at University College Dublin. She was appointed Curator of the 18th International Architecture Biennale at La Biennale di Venezia in 2023. In January 2023, she was awarded an OBE ‘for services to architecture and education’ in King Charles’ New Year’s Honours List. In January 2024, she was awarded the UK’s highest architecture award, the RIBA Royal Gold Medal. In April 2024, she was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people in the annual TIME100 list.
More about Professor Lesley Lokko