Mabel O. Wilson, “On the Violence of Architecture”

e-flux Architecture wraps our Spring 2024 season with “On the Violence of Architecture,” a lecture by Mabel O. Wilson in conversation with Mahdi Sabbagh at e-flux on Thursday, May 30 at 7pm.

In his first chapter “Concerning Violence” in The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon observes that “this world divided into compartments, this world cut in two is inhabited by two different species. The originality of the colonial context is that economic reality, inequality, and the immense difference of ways of life never come to mask the human realities. When you examine at close quarters the colonial context, it is evident that what parcels out the world is to begin with the fact of belonging to or not belonging to a given race, a given species.” How do we understand what happens when bodies routinely cross borders, when they are subjected to all forms of scrutiny? In what ways are processes of subjection performed, like nationality but also gender, sexuality, and race allowing agents of the state to determine the status of belonging, rights, and humanity? In narrating a personal journey through and within checkpoints in the West Bank, Mabel O. Wilson will consider how borders divide territory and function as wastelands, zones of suspended time, and disrupted space.

“On the Violence of Architecture” is presented as part of e-flux Architecture Lectures, a monthly series inviting researchers and practitioners to discuss timely issues in contemporary architecture, theory, culture, and technology.