Vortragsreihe "The Other Side of the Moon"

"Coloniality [is] the reverse and unavoidable side of 'modernity' – its darker side, like the part of the moon we do not see when we observe it from earth."–Walter Mignolo

Notions of modern architecture and the city are closely linked to colonial knowledge – a knowledge system with associated cultural narratives that, starting in Europe, legitimised the plunder of the world and the subjugation of other peoples. The buildings in the canon of architectural and urban history, handed down as artefacts of progress and enlightenment, have a flip side – "The Other Side of the Moon" – that is interwoven with colonial violence and racism.

In the lecture series, the interactions between architecture and the city with coloniality and racism will be addressed from different perspectives - and also, more generally, the structural discrimination of migrant people and BIPoC in the way space is understood, planned and conceived. And it asks who is existent or non-existent in spaces, histories and discourses, whose knowledge is seen or not seen. How can decolonial, intersectional, multi-perspectival approaches, but also strategies of recoding and ironising space be used to create visibility and conceive new forms of living together?