Cities as Archives: Historical Stratigraphies and Visual Cultures of the Built Environment across the Horn of Africa, East Africa and Regions Beyond
The panel seeks to shed new light on cities as archives of past encounters exposing historical layers through the visual cultures pertaining to the built environment of hubs of exchange in the Horn of Africa, East Africa, and connected regions.
organized by Suha Hasan (KTH Royal Institute of Technology) and Vera-Simone Schulz (Kunsthstorisches Institut in Florenz - MPI)
The panel seeks to shed new light on cities as archives of past encounters exposing historical layers through the visual cultures pertaining to the built environment of hubs of exchange in the Horn of Africa, East Africa, and connected regions. It interrogates marine networks and interrelations with the hinterland expressed in the built environment, considering both land and sea routes as spaces of artistic transmission. The unique position of these cities enables a discussion of mobility, and artistic entanglements across different temporalities and geographies. It also provides insights into transcultural and transnational connections, and colonial appropriations of the networks in which these cities are embedded. This includes cities of commerce, on pilgrimage routes, port cities, cities of transit as well as travel destinations. Respondents are encouraged to explore transregional connections that challenge hegemonic national narratives to enable readings of shared cultural histories and highlight counter narratives of marginalized actors. Since the panel focuses on the circulation of shared architectural and urban aesthetics, we invite respondents to consider the following: building typologies, the use of language when describing spaces and their construction, city morphology, mobility of construction workers, exchanges of buildings techniques, importation and exportation of materials, and fauna and flora ecological exchanges in urban spaces. We encourage submissions that use case studies to draw connections between different cities using visual cultures, including photography and film, that could highlight these connections in art, architecture, urban ecologies, or marine industries including trade, pearl diving and boat making. We also encourage contributions that provide insights into how colonialism appropriated these networks to produce what is now termed colonial architecture.
Please send your proposal to: Vera-Simone Schulz: vera-simone.schulz@khi.fi.it Suha Hasan: suha.hasan@abe.kth.se
