Vanessa Keith at Twelve Cautionary Urban Tales Exhibition

As part of a parallel program accompanying the exhibition Twelve Cautionary Urban Tales, A Children’s Story, A Horror Story, taking place on the 15th of February 5 PM at Matadero Madrid, is a Synesthetic Story structured in three main parts, a group of international participants—architects, artists and theo-rists— from diverse context experiences, will tell three stories. From the climate crisis to property speculation, the present seems to lead us toward a future that leaves no room for a dignified life: the future is a horror story, especially that of the city. In response to stories about future terror that can seem paralysing, we aim to invoke speculation as a hopeful practice, an exercise in resistance that calls upon the need to identify future alternatives to resist what the future is said to hold.

Vanessa Keith is a registered architect and the Principal of Studioteka, which she founded in 2003. Based in New York city, StudioTEKA is a boutique firm that engages in both built and research based design work. She is the author of the UR Book 2100: A Dystopian Utopia.

Jordan H. Carver and Mark Wasiuta in conversation with Nina Valerie Kolowratnik at e-flux

Trevor Paglen, National Reconnaissance Office Ground Station (ADF-SW) Jornada del Muerto, New Mexico; Distance ~16 Miles, 2012. C-print, 37.5 x 48.6 in. Courtesy of the artist; Metro Pictures, New York; and Altman Siegel, San Francisco. © Trevor Paglen

On Wednesday, February 5, e-flux hosted an event in celebration of of Nina Valerie Kolowratnik's The Language of Secret Proof: Indigenous Truth and Representation. Jordan H. Carver, author of Spaces of Disappearance, and Mark Wasiuta, co-director of the CCCP program at Columbia GSAPP, were in conversation with Kolowratnik.

In The Language of Secret Proof, Nina Valerie Kolowratnik challenges the conditions under which Indigenous rights to protect and regain traditional lands are currently negotiated in United States legal frameworks.

Andrea Johnson 2020 LAF Fellowship for Innovation and Leadership

Research Director Andrea Johnson is one of six people selected for the Landscape Architecture Foundation’s Fellowship for Innovation and Leadership. Using decentralized solar projects in NYC as a lens for analysis, Andrea’s project will investigate the ways in which communities are building social power through energy generation and how the landscape discipline might reinforce these movements. Ultimately, she seeks to develop planning and design criteria that embraces the dynamic nature and cultural dimensions of power systems.

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Terreform is a nonprofit urban research and advocacy center founded in 2005. Its imprint, UR (Urban Research), is a book series devoted to cities and their futures. We invite the collaboration of all who share our interest in creating sustainable, beautiful, and just cities around the world.