By Elke Krasny
-Kaumudi Karwande and Sharvin Jangle
How can we imagine architecture and building in order to learn to live with a wounded planet and to recover from patriarchal colonial capitalist violence?
Today in the SEA conversations, Elke Krasny mainly focused on this question. The ideology of human supremacy has turned human impact on the planet into the reason behind the climate catastrophe and the ongoing mass extinction. The geological force of humans is causing the planet’s wounds. Humans are most intimately connected to, constituted by, the planet. As our planet grapples with the consequences of centuries of exploitation, it becomes crucial to question the fundamental frameworks that have shaped our societies. By embracing sustainability, inclusivity, cultural diversity, redefining power dynamics, reconnecting with nature, and educating for change, we can lay the groundwork for a more just and harmonious future.
Consciousness raising is a feminist activism approach where small groups gather to share personal experiences, analyze common concerns, and uncover the systemic conditions that perpetuate inequality. Through this process, participants aim to raise awareness, challenge oppressive systems, and foster solidarity among marginalized groups.
An essay, by Elke Krasny, argues that “we need to collectively raise awareness of the modern infrastructural condition, which affects both individual lives and the planet as a whole. It situates infrastructure at the crucial intersection of social and environmental justice and proposes a better understanding of how the connectivity engendered by infrastructure affects everyone and everything, and further gives rise to socio-environmental and bio material interdependencies and responsibilities.”
In the conversations she quoted many curators such as Donna Haraway, “Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene”, Judith Butler an American philosopher, Joulia Strauss, “Avontomi Akadimia: Curating Becomes Curing.” etc.
Planning for feminist recovery needs to stay attuned to such long term processes of recovery, which, above all, require the responsiveness of care. Taking the notion of feminist recovery to refer to the recovery from this lasting aftermath of ideology and material patriarchal warfare on bodies, minds and environments and the historical violence of patriarchy, which has led to the production of gendered, sexualized, racialized and classes vulnerable populations and the large scale ruination of their habitats and environments, makes such feminist recovery never ending.
Architecture has the power to shape our environment and influence social structures; it is imperative that we use this power responsibly and ethically, working towards a future that embraces healing, justice, and the well-being of both humanity and the Earth we call home.
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