IRAAS presents Black Counter Cartographies with Emanuel Admassu
Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation- Columbia University and Mpho Matsipa, Researcher, Designer & Curator of African Mobilities.
Akin to the way that racial thinking marks and makes human difference, geographic knowledge and its modes of representation mark differences-above from below ground, land from water, here from there, mine from yours. The field of Black Geographies challenges and reimagines modernity’s production of space (and time), one that has been abstracted by the metrics of markets and politics. Black Counter Cartographies brings together diverse scholars, artists, and designers in a series of conversations exploring the spatial practices of Black life across the diaspora and how they construct “counter cartographies” of sociality, imagination, and liberation.
Dr. Emanuel Admassu is an assistant professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation (GSAPP). He is a founding partner, with Jen Wood, of AD-WO, an art and architecture practice based in New York, and by extension, between Melbourne and Addis Ababa. He is also a co-founding board member of the Black Reconstruction Collective. Admassu’s art, design, and teaching practices operate at the intersection of design theory, spatial justice, and contemporary African art.
Dr. Mpho Matsipa is a researcher, designer, and curator of African Mobilities. She has taught at the University of the Witwatersrand, The Cooper Union, and Columbia University, written critical essays on art and architecture, and curated several trans-national exhibitions and discursive platforms. Mphowas Loeb Fellow (2022) at the Harvard University, and a Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Mpho is an associate curator for the Lubumbashi Biennale in the Democratic Republic of Congo(2022).