Acts of Care symposium

Acts of Care symposium
1 October, 2024 6-9 pm
Snarkitecture office, New York

The attendance to the symposium is free of charge, but places are very limited. Please RSVP by September 26th here!

Attendees receive the event address and details upon RSVP.

The Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, in collaboration with the Consulate General of Finland in New York, is excited to present Helsinki-based Vapaa Collective as part of the 2024 Archtober program.

Vapaa Collective’s project, Architectural Act of Care, consists of two parts: a series of performative actions in the public realm in New York City performed by the collective between 30 September and 4 October, and Acts of Care symposium on 1 October. Find out more about Vapaa Collective’s performative actions in the city here.

Vapaa Collective’s Architectural Acts of Care series started in Helsinki in spring 2024 and continued in London in June 2024. As the final chapter of the trilogy in New York, Vapaa invites you to envision a future that demands a radical shift in how we design and build. The series explores connections between architecture and care, especially in the context of climate change. The New York edition focuses on the threat of rising sea levels to Lower Manhattan, urging us to rethink architecture’s role in nurturing and sustaining our environment.

The Acts of Care symposium brings together researchers and architects to talk about various forms of caring for our built environment, especially with the challenges of a warming world. During the event, we’ll hear from Vapaa Collective’s Charlotte Nyholm on their current project Architectural Acts of Care, from curator Kari Conte on her collaboration with artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles and her practice of Maintenance Art, and from Anais Reyes, curator at New York City’s Climate Museum, on building community and understanding around the complexity of the climate crisis through a museum institution. The presentations are followed by a panel discussion moderated by Lydia Kallipoliti, esteemed architect and Associate Professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

Program

6:00 pm Welcome
6:20 pm Vapaa Collective, Charlotte Nyholm, Architect
6:45 pm Kari Conte, Curator and writer 
7:10 pm Anais Reyes, Senior Exhibitions Associate of Climate Museum NY
7:30 pm short break
7:40 pm Panel discussion
Moderator: Lydia Kallipoliti
Speakers: Iines Karkulahti, Kari Conte, Anais Reyes and Jessica Kwok
9:00 pm Event ends

Lydia Kallipoliti is an architect, engineer, scholar, and an Associate Professor directing the MS in Advanced Architectural Design at Columbia University GSAPP. Prior to Columbia, Kallipoliti was an Associate Professor at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of the Cooper Union in New York, where she also served as a Senior Associate at the Institute for Sustainable Design, and as the Feltman Chair in Lighting. Kallipoliti’s research focuses on the intersections of architecture, technology and environmental politics and more particularly on recycling material experiments, theories of waste and reuse, as well as closed and self-reliant systems and urban environments. Her work is presented in a variety of media including online digital platforms, lexicons, databases and archives, exhibitions and holographic animations, with the scope of engaging a wide audience in what she calls ‘immersive scholarship’.

Kari Conte is a curator and writer specializing in global contemporary art, focusing on ecological and feminist perspectives. She published Seven Work Ballets (Sternberg Press, 2016), the first monograph on pioneering artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles. Conte serves as a consulting curator for City as Living Laboratory (CALL) and as Senior Advisor at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York, where she previously held the role of Director of Programs and Exhibitions from 2010 to 2020. In addition, she is Residency Curator for Kai Art Center in Tallinn, co-founder of Rethinking Residencies, and was a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar in Istanbul in 2021 and 2022. She has curated over forty exhibitions and regularly contributes to scholarly books, exhibition catalogs, and magazines.

Jessica Kwok works as Associate Curator at Storefront for Art and Architecture. Her research and curatorial practice is interested in fracturing governing frameworks in relation to cultural production, labor and performances of womanhood, with a focus on solidarities within the Global South and their diasporas. Jessica founded and directed domesti.city, a project space in Lower Manhattan that ran from 2018-2020. Her writing has appeared in various arts and culture publications. She is a graduate of The New School’s School of Constructed Environments where she received a Masters in Architecture.

Anais Reyes is the Senior Exhibitions Associate of Curation at the Climate Museum, where she works on planning, researching, and writing exhibitions that educate and empower visitors. She is motivated by the potential and urgent need for social and cultural approaches to climate solutions. She has previously worked at the American Museum of Natural History, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. She received her BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with concentrations in curation and entrepreneurship, and is currently pursuing a post-baccalaureate certificate in ecology, climate, and social sciences at Columbia University.

Helsinki-based Vapaa Collective is a creative collective founded by architects Iines Karkulahti, Charlotte Nyholm, and Meri Wiikinkoski. The Collective explores the holistic societal transformation necessitated by the environmental crisis, with a particular focus on human environments and the construction industry. By blending theoretical research, design, and artistic practice, the collective envisions new regenerative environments.The collective was awarded the Bryggman Prize in 2020, invited to chair the Futures Committee of the Finnish Association of Architects SAFA in 2021, and was one of the founding signatories of the Finnish Architects Declare. The collective has produced widely published installations, given keynote lectures internationally, and was shortlisted to curate the Finnish Pavilion in Venice Biennale in 2020 and 2023. The collective’s book “Architects of Disruption” was published in 2022.

Vapaa Collective’s participation in Archtober is commissioned by the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York and the Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland in partnership with the Consulate General of Finland in New York. The project is part of the pARTir initiative funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.