The colloquium examines how preservation has participated in the construction of national heritage across western Africa, and how preservation priorities have developed within differing political, cultural, and institutional contexts. It will consider the legacies of distinct colonial administrations––in particular French and British––, and how these histories continue to shape preservation policy and architectural conservation. It will also examine more recent exchanges between western African and American preservationists, museums, and cultural institutions, and the ways these transatlantic dialogues have informed contemporary preservation discourse. Taking as its point of departure the MoMA exhibition on post-independence architecture in western Africa—which seeks to bring greater visibility in the United States to significant yet still underrecognized architectural works from across the region—the colloquium expands the discussion to include the preservation practices that have emerged around this architecture and the broader cultural landscapes of independence. In doing so, it highlights the important contributions West African preservationists have made to contemporary debates on heritage, memory, adaptive reuse, and the preservation of modern architecture.

The colloquium is premised on the idea that the collective memory of independence as a foundational political event has both shaped and been shaped by preservation practices in western Africa and the United States, and that there is much to be learned from placing these histories in dialogue. The colloquium seeks to foster new dialogue between West African and American preservationists on how to preserve and interpret sites associated with independence on both sides of the Atlantic.

Organized in conjunction with MoMA’s exhibition on western African architecture, the colloquium brings together preservationists, architects, historians, planners, archaeologists, curators, and cultural leaders to reflect on the past, present, and future of preservation in western Africa.

Co-organized by the Columbia GSAPP Preservation Program and the MoMA Department of Architecture and Design.

SCHEDULE

10:00AM Welcome & Introductions by Jorge Otero-Pailos, Mari Lending and Erik Langdalen

10:15AM-12:00PM: Cut — Recovering fragments and the ethics of architectural disassembly

Lucian Simmons – Head of Provenance Research, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Michael R. Allen –Visiting Assistant Professor of History, West Virginia University Albena Yaneva – Professor of Architectural Theory, Politecnico di Torino

12:00PM-1:20PM Lunch

1:20PM-2:40PM: Carry — Circulation, relocation, and the politics of provenance

Tone Hansen – Director, Munch Museum, Oslo Susan Boynton – Professor of Music, Columbia University Uwe Fleckner – Professor of Art History, University of Hamburg, Director of Warburg-Haus Evangelos Kotsioris – Assistant Curator, Architecture & Design, Museum of Modern Art, New York

2:40PM-3:00 Coffee Break

3:00PM -4:20PM Combine — Integrating fragments into new narratives, pedagogies, and futures

Giuseppe Lignano & Ada Tolla - Partners LOT-EK, Adjunct Associate Professors Amandine Kastler & Erlend Skjeseth – Partners Kastler Skjeseth Architects, Associate Professor and Assistant Professor, Oslo School of Architecture Francisco Prado-Vilar – Distinguished Researcher, CISPAC, Uni. Santiago de Compostela Amie Siegel – Artist

4:20PM-5:00PM - Closing Remarks

The colloquium will conclude with a concert in Columbia’s St. Paul’s Chapel of choral music from sixteenth-century Iberia. Curated by music historians Susan Boynton and Eric Rice, the program explores the afterlives of medieval chant. The music will be performed by University of Connecticut’s Collegium Musicum under the direction of Eric Rice, in collaboration with singers from the Department of Music at Columbia University.

The event concludes with a reception made possible by the generous support of the Royal Norwegian Consulate General.

The 2023 Fitch Colloquium will bring prominent figures from preservation, art, architecture, science, and technology whose influential work is helping to redefine what the atmosphere is understood to be. Speakers include: Michael Morris, curator, co-creator of The World Weather Network, and Co-Director emeritus of Artangel (UK); Gisela Winckler, Lamont Research Professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Associate Director of the Geochemistry Division; Shona Illingworth, artist and Professor in Art, Film and Media at the University of Kent (UK), and co-founder of Air Space Tribunal; Giuliana Bruno, historian, Emmet Blakeney Gleason Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University and author of Atmospheres of Projection: Environmentality in Art and Screen Media (Chicago, 2022); Nerea Calvillo, architect and Associate Professor at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, University of Warwick (UK) and author of Aeropolis: Queering Air in Toxic Polluted Worlds (Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2023); David Gissen, author, designer, Professor of Architecture and Urban History at The New School, and author of Manhattan Atmospheres (Minnesota, 2013); Lindsey Wikstrom, architect, co-founder of Mattaforma, and author of Designing the Forest and Other Mass Timber Futures (Routledge, 2023); Mark Wasiuta, curator, co-director of Critical, Curatorial, and Conceptual Practices program at GSAPP, and co-designer of “Instructions for the Reconstitution of Historical Smog” (2011); Anna Lea Albright, Postdoctoral Researcher, Laboratory for Dynamic Meteorology, Sorbonne University (France); and others.

These speaker’s projects and research will present new insights about the cultural and physical nature of the atmosphere, offering glimpses into new artistic and scientific understandings of the atmosphere(s) and their implications for forward looking strategies for its preservation.

These implications are important for preservationists to consider: if current atmospheric preservation strategies are the outcome of finely tuned responses to existing scientific knowledge about the atmosphere, then as this knowledge evolves, preservation strategies must also evolve. The presentations and dialogues will explore potential directions for that evolution, including various experimental preservation approaches that account for the new dual understanding of the atmosphere as both a physical and a cultural phenomenon, of the atmosphere as both a gaseous suspension of dusts, and as cultural heritage. The Fitch Colloquium will therefore explore new experimental preservation approaches at the intersection of art and science, architecture and technology, the humanities and climate.

The colloquium will be divided into three panels, each exploring the relationship between current and future experimental approaches to the preservation of atmospheric heritage. The presentations will look forward to the future as well as back to the past. They will explore the rich history that current approaches have within the discipline of preservation. These vary in scale from the planetary to the microscopic, including the protection of the night sky against artificial light pollution, of daytime atmospheric long-range visibility against the haze of pollution, of mid-range viewsheds against visual encroachments, of indoor museum atmospheres that protect art collections, to encapsulated inert atmospheres to protect fragile heritage objects. Current preservation approaches rest on decades of scientific research, advanced technologies, as well as community engaged advocacy work leading to contemporary regulatory policies. The colloquium will explore how current approaches and policies might evolve in light of the recent contributions of artists, architects, curators, climate scientists and technologists.

The 2023 Fitch Colloquium is organized by Jorge Otero-Pailos, Professor and Director of the Historic Preservation Program, GSAPP, Columbia University.

SCHEDULE

Thursday, March 3rd from 6:00 PM-8:00 PM, New York EST / Friday, March 4th from 7:00 AM-9:00 AM China Standard Time

6:00 PM
Welcome and introduction by Jorge Otero-Pailos

6:30 PM Introduction to the first panel by Martino Stierli

6:35 PM
Presentations by Zhang Ke, XU Tiantian, and Philip F. Yuan

7:30 PM
Discussion among panel participants moderated by Martino Stierli

7:55 PM
Closing Remarks

Friday, March 4, 9:00 AM-12:00 PM, New York EST
(Friday, March 4, 10:00 PM-1:00 AM China Standard Time)

9:00 AM
Welcome and introduction to the second panel by Jorge Otero-Pailos

9:20 AM
Presentations by Dong Gong, Wang Hui, Lu Wenyu, and Pei Weiyi Chloe

10:50 AM
Discussion among panel participants moderated by Jorge Otero-Pailos

11:55 AM – 12:00 PM
Closing Remarks

Schedule

12:00-12:15 PM Welcome & Introduction
Remarks by Jorge Otero-Pailos and Katherine Malone-France

12:15-1:45 pm Panel 1: Reclaiming
Introduction: Katherine Malone-France
Moderator: Brent Leggs
Panelists: Karyn Olivier, Monet Noelle Marshall, Ada Pinkston

This panel brings together artists whose projects have worked to reclaim existing spaces, previously preserved and imagined to be “authentic” sites of the past (historic homes, plantations, and public monuments), to highlight or re-insert institutionally marginalized narratives. Through their practices, these artists challenge the current dominant interpretative structures that privilege white histories and perspectives, instead honoring aspects of BIPOC presence, contributions, and perseverance at these sites.

2:00-3:30 pm Panel 2: Materializing

Introduction: Anna Gasha
Moderator: Justin Garret Moore
Panelists: Paul Rucker, Nona Faustine, David Hartt

This session will focus on how artists have given form to BIPOC histories through the cultural landscape writ large, where connections to the past have been built over and, as a result, are less overt. These artists reimagine and materialize their visions to resurface connections of present-day urban landscapes, everyday buildings, and streetscapes to articulate the connection between the past and ongoing issues facing communities of color today. Together, they illustrate the importance of and opportunities to recount and uplift BIPOC narratives, even when there are minimal physical remnants of those histories.

3:45-5:15pm Panel 3: Connecting

Introduction: Cole Akers
Moderator: Marisa Brown
Panelists: Joel Garcia, Ifa Bayeza, Jenenne Whitfield (Heidelberg Project)

While all art has and depends on an audience, just as all preservation projects design around stakeholders, the artists in this session place interacting with and providing opportunities for local communities of color at the forefront of their work. Art at historically charged sites thus work as a vehicle to encourage dialogue and collective action among and within these communities, in order to envision new futures while learning from the past.