Book Launch: Monumental Wastelands

About this event

Déborah López and Hadin Charbel, editors of Monumental Wastelands, host a discussion with respondent Gonzalo Herrero Delicado and other speakers (to be announced) to launch the first two volumes of this new publication, exploring different thoughts and practices on the themes of Autonomy and Logistics.

Monumental Wastelands Magazine is a bi-annual independent publication for the research and investigation of contemporary spatial practices and their contingencies, materialised as a bilingual (English/Spanish) augmented magazine, with written and visual contributions from a diverse group of authors in various fields with different backgrounds. Each of the articles also has an original augmented contribution, which can be accessed via the AR App.

After a brief introduction into the book by the editors, a video will introduce each author and their contribution. Two external respondents have been invited to comment on the book, the contributions, and discuss their relevance in rethinking contemporary issues at local and global scales.

An informal reception will follow the book launch, where both volumes of the book will be available to purchase.

About the book

If each civilisation is remembered for the artifacts that they have left behind monumentalized posteriori (the Egyptians for their pyramids, the Romans for their infrastructures, etc…) then what will be the equivalent(s) of contemporary civilisation?

The title 'Monumental Wastelands' is derived from reinterpreting the definition of what a monument is from when the 'Nine Points on Monumentality' were first published (Written by J. L. Sert, F. Leger, S. Giedion). In the text, the authors outline what qualifies a monument, stating that it ought to outlive the generation that produced it as well as reflect the wants and needs of the people. This definition is being confronted as most monuments are arguably lacking in satisfying this condition, hence one searches for new forms of monuments, or anti-monuments. The ‘wastelands’ portion is derived from looking at the byproducts resulting from the making of these outdated monuments, like the scarred landscapes of marble quarries or de-forrested terrain, which can and perhaps should be read as monuments, in order to recalibrate what means and to what ends those wants and needs are realised.

The first issue, Autonomy, questions systems of control and the re-evaluation of certain grounds, with contributions by Ursula Biemann, Víctor Muñoz-Sanz, Brava, Ahora, Stein Farstadvoll, Nawin Nuthong, Toshiki Hirano, Current Team, Damjan Jovanovic and Pareid.

The second issue, Logistics, examines various scales and relationships between ecology, economy and identity, with contributions by Michela Falcone, Kozo Kadowaki, Lemonot, Takk, Jesús Meseguer, Albert Brenchat-Aguilar, Barry Wark, Tei Carpenter, Wataru Shinji and Lily Zhang, Folly Feast Lab, and Nicholas Korody.

Respondents

• Gonzalo Herrero Delicado
• Sabina Andron

Editors

• Déborah López
• Hadin Charbel

Authors Vol. 1

• Ursula Biemann
• Víctor Muñoz-Sanz
• Brava
• Ahora
• Stein Farstadvoll
• Nawin Nuthong
• Toshiki Hirano
• Current Team
• Damjan Jovanovic
• Pareid

Authors Vol. 2

• Michela Falcone
• Kozo Kadowaki
• Lemonot
• Takk
• Jesús Meseguer
• Albert Brenchat-Aguilar
• Barry Wark
• Tei Carpenter
• Wataru Shinji y Lily Zhang
• Folly Feast Lab
• Nicholas Korody

Speaker biographies

Déborah López is a licensed architect in Spain, and Lecturer (teaching) at the Bartlett. She co-leads Research Cluster 1 in the B-Pro program under the title 'Monumental Wastelands' with a focus on climate fiction (Cli-Fi), teaches design in Year 2 in the MSci program where she is also the Year 3 Coordinator.

Hadin Charbel is an architectural designer and Lecturer (teaching) at the Bartlett. He co-leads Research Cluster 1 in the B-Pro program under the title 'Monumental Wastelands' with a focus on climate fiction (Cli-Fi), teaches design in Year 2 in the MSci program where he is also the Year 3 Skills Coordinator.

Pareid is an interdisciplinary design and research studio led by Déborah López and Hadin Charbel. Through a form of techno-research-bashing, projects are narrative driven while varying in scales and mediums; often positioning themselves within a socio-political discourse and operating at various scales and media through iminent fictions (if). Their work has been widely published and exhibited including at the Venice Biennale, Seoul Biennale, and the Royal Academy of Arts and most recently as part of the 2022 London Design Week. They were the recipients of the Arquia Innova Award in 2020, Premio COAM Emergente in 2020, and awarded Architizer’s 2020 A+ Popular Choice Award. They have just recentlycurated the Bartlett’s Prospectives Issue 3 under the theme of Climate F(r)ictions and are both the founders and directors of Monumental Wastelands Magazine, a recently published bi-lingual and augmented book  with guest contributions spanning topics from ecosophy, aesthetics, autonomy, logistics, and technology.

Gonzalo Herrero Delicado is a curator, architect and educator based in London who works at the intersection of architecture, design and technology, exploring their connection to ecology and digital culture. He is the Director of the Ecocity World Summit 2023 to be held in June 2023 at the Barbican Centre in London and a Design Fellow at the University of Cambridge and an Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins in London where he leads design studios exploring contemporary domesticity through alternative ecological and well-being strategies. He recently worked as a Curator for the new Museum of the Future in Dubai where he curated the opening exhibition Tomorrow Today (2022-2025) among other projects. From 2016 to 2021, he was the Curator of the Architecture Programme at the Royal Academy of Arts where he curated Eco-Visionaries (2019-2020) and Invisible Landscapes (2018-2019), among many other exhibitions, displays and public programmes. Previously, he held different curatorial positions at the Design Museum and The Architecture Foundation.

Sabina Andron (aka Dr Wall) is a London-based urban scholar specializing in creative and transgressive public cultures in the neoliberal city, and visual and semiotic research methods. Her research interests focus on the right to the city, urban surface inscriptions and materialities, and crime and deviance as forms of urban citizenship. Her first monograph, Graffiti, spatial justice and the city: the surface commons will be published with Routledge in 2023. Sabina currently teaches at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, where she received her Architectural History PhD in 2018. She was a UCL Grand Challenges grantee and organiser of the international Graffiti Sessions conference in 2014, as well as a British Council fellow at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016. She is the recipient of the 2020 Prosser award for outstanding work in visual methodologies, awarded by the International Visual Sociology Association.

More information

• Buy or download the issues of this magazine