Pelin Tan: talk on Autonomous Infrastructure, @ Konsthall C

Saturday October 7th 2017 by Peter Thomas Lang

Pelin Tan at Konsthall C.  Cigarrvägen 14, Hökarängen,

Title: Autonomous Infrastructure: Forms of Decay

Theme: How autonomous infrastructures can become a process, a tool, a methodology of decolonizing design strategies?  What are the spatial and local conditions that can be initiated beyond trans-local structures?  These questions relate to our current times of nomadic dwelling and sustaining decolonized infrastructure, cities and living conditions in contested territories. Process such as rebuilding destructed towns after battles, cities under sieged where destruction is a potentialities of building practice of architecture, or both temporary and urbanized refugee camps.

Pelin Tan’s  presentation will focus on migration, labor and architectural pedagogy through cases of recent research ranging from Southeast of Turkey of Syrian borderline to Pearl River Delta/China territorial borderlines. The discussion will focus on the conceptual framework of decay, autonomy, infrastructure and decolonization.

Bio: Pelin Tan is a researcher in sociology, urbanism and architecture. Her practice is about research-based artistic and architectural pedagogy, territorial conflict, commonning practices and urban justice. Tan was a postdoctoral fellow the School of Architecture and Planning, ACT Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Tan worked in several institutions such as Architecture&Art History, Berlin TU, MA in Architecture and Urban Studies (adbk – Nürenberg) and was recently Research Professor of Design Strategies at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, School of Design (2016). Phd scholar at Berlin Humboldt Univ. (DAAD, 2006-2007). In 2013 – 2017, Tan was Associate Prof and Vice-Dean of the Architecture Faculty of Mardin Artuklu University (nomination for MiesAward 2017).

She was a Japan Foundation research fellow at Osaka Urban Research Plaza, where she researched alternative collectives and urban justice in Japan (2012). As a Hong Kong Design Trust fellow she conducting a research about Threshold Infrastructure on the Pearl River Delta Sea (2016). Tan is  a part of the pedagogical consortium on Refugee Heritage, Campus in Camps, Dheisheh Palestinian Refugee Camp.

Tan is and a lead author of Towards an Urban Society, the International Panel on Social Progress (IPSP, edited by Saskia Sassen and Edgar Pieterse, 2015–2017). She contributed recently to publications on architecture, urbanism, and art such as: 2000+: Urgencies of Architectural Theories (GSAPP, 2015), and The Silent University: Toward Transversal Pedagogy (Sternberg Press, 2016), Autonomous Archiving (2016), Camp as Trans-local Practice (Refugee Heritage, e-flux architecture, 2017). She participated in Istanbul Biennial (2007), Istanbul Biennial (2015), Montreal Biennial (2014), Lisbon Architecture Triennial (2013), Oslo Architecture Triennial (2016). She is one of the curator of 1.Wuzhen Architecture Biennial, China (2018). Tan co-directed three episodes of films titled 2084; about the future of art and society with artist Anton Vidokle.