XClose

The Bartlett School of Architecture

Home
Menu

Modern Heritage in the Anthropocene (MoHoA)

MoHoA is a global collaborative that seeks to reframe, decentre, and decolonise the systems and processes that generate knowledge about our collective pasts.

Pictured in this photographic artwork are two Black African figures facing one another, standing in front of a steely blue ripples of water that merges with a nebulous background at a vaguely distinguishable horizon.

11 October 2023

Through collective research, MoHoA confronts the challenges posed by the Anthropocene – a geological epoch that presents the paradox of being born out of modernity and posing an existential threat to its legacies. This paradox is important for all those engaged with the past and concerned for the future, including architects, and built environment professionals, as it demands changes to the systems and processes that have served our professions since the 19th century, but are ill-equipped to deal with, and in some cases even complicit in, the planetary crises we face in the 21st century. 

In October 2022, The Bartlett School of Architecture, in partnership with the University of Liverpool’s School of Architecture and the University of Cape Town, hosted the second MoHoA conference – Modern Heritage in the Anthropocene. Over 50 participants presented at the hybrid event, including keynote events with Rosemary Campbell-Stephens (Global Majority – A Celebration of Decoloniality and Recentring Humanity) and David Olusoga, attracting over 500 attendees over three days. The collaborative has since run workshops in Africa and at The Bartlett (Referentiality) supported by the AHRC and looks forward to publishing the second special edition of Curator: The Museum Journal in early 2024.

More information