Ascensions 3 {ACTIVISM & ADVOCACY}

For the third event in the Ascensions series, we are bringing together four graduates from the RCA School of Architecture: Sahra Hersi, Julian Siravo, Mingxin Li, Emily Wickham. These are spatial practitioners involved in critical practice which we’ve loosely termed under Activism and Advocacy, but as we will hear is a capacious and loose umbrella for their work. Through their in-school and post-graduation work, they each use the built environment as an entry-point for social justice. They are here to discuss the ways in which the spirit of the RCA School of Architecture has informed, inspired, accelerated and/or inhibited their political and advocacy work across a range of contexts and through a range of means.

We are grateful that the RCA provides the fertile ground for a material, political engagement with our built environment. In today’s context, with occupation, displacement and violence so front and centre in our daily lives, and with institutional power managing to crush and censor many of those trying to speak up, it feels more pertinent than ever to be having this conversation.

That’s not to say that the elite and exceptional conditions of “art school” gives us all the tools we need, as Linda Betasamosake Simpson tells us, ‘If you want to learn about something, you need to take your body onto the land and do it. Get a practice. If you want to learn about movement building, get yourself outside involved with people that are building movements. That doesn’t mean don’t read books, or don’t talk to people with all kinds of intelligences. It doesn’t mean don’t find mentors. It does mean, get out, get involved and get invested.’

Sahra Hersi (RCA MA Architecture 2017) is an artist and spatial designer. Her work ranges in scales to include zines, workshops, public realm interventions, and buildings. Sahra is an associate lecturer at Goldsmiths. She describes her work as “caring about people, places, art and architecture…in that order”.

Julian Siravo (RCA MA City Design 2019) is a director of Autonomy think tank. He leads the urban research team with a focus on ageing populations, the future of care, logistics, and workspace. He has spent time both in commercial and research-based architectural practices. In his work Julian has explored automated construction, ideas of post-familial domesticity, and socialised care-work.

Mingxin Li (RCA MA Environmental Architecture 2020) is an urban researcher. He is currently developing his PhD project, based at the RCA School of Architecture, on modes of representation of the Zoige Plateau - the world’s largest high-altitude marsh.

Emily Wickham (RCA MA Architecture 2021) is a designer at Assemble. Her thesis at the RCA framed grassroots womxn’s football as a radical act in public space. She is interested in people, materials, and making. Emily is currently designing a Maggie’s cancer centre, and is a design tutor at Nottingham Architecture School.

Co-curated by Charlotte Grace and Thomas Aquilina
Support from Luiza Tatarska and Pam Su
Music by Dara Khakpour (RCA Interior Futures 2021)
Poster design by Hereth (Clem Rousset: RCA MA Graphic Design 2020)