Beyond Provenance: Reconstructing Records
Fri, 4/19 · 12:00 pm—5:00 pm · School of Architecture, South Gallery
Princeton University School of Architecture; Humanities Council Magic Project
Beyond Provenance, a new symposium series at Princeton University School of Architecture, explores the radically expanding site of architectural engagement; moving on the one hand toward extractive origins through research invested in narratives of untold exploitation, and on the other hand toward a perpetual futurity by practices engaged in material reuse. These positions are converging on material records in a moment of epistemological reevaluation. At the same time, the practices of documentation, transcription, and recording are collapsing the distinctions between the operations of the architect, archivist, cartographer, technician, and historian.
Convened by Erin Besler (Princeton University) and Sarah Hearne (University of Colorado, Denver), with programming assistance by Jocelyn Beausire, the series unfolds over three sessions on three different dates, each examining the reorganization of contemporary research practices to ask new questions that address the temporal and spatial dilations of the field.
March 22: Recording Sites
On the processes of recording that allow a site to be known, and the ways it’s simultaneously grounded in documentation and connected to stories beyond its limits.
April 12: Revisioning Material
On the marks, traces, or other acts of revisioning that are inscribed in material, and the ways these forms of embodied information, which are often elusive to formal documentation, offer alternative narratives about the lives of materials and, more importantly, those that engage with them.
April 19: Reconstructing Records
On the circulation of materials and by extension their information footprint, focusing on the ways records are constructed alongside processes of collecting, sorting, redistributing, and reusing material.
All events begin at 12pm at the Princeton School of Architecture. Each gathering includes presentations, discussion, food, refreshments, and remote site visits: to a terminal lake, a waste recovery station, an archive, or a demolition site. Because these are sites where records are written, they provide opportunities to reflect on tracing material histories and capturing embodied information today. Free and open to the public. Beyond Provenance is supported by a Princeton University Humanities Council Magic Grant.
