Hearing no objection, it is so decided

Talk and discussion along with Marija Marić (Master in Architecture programme, University of Luxembourg)

VENUE: Casino Display, 1, rue de la Loge, L-1945 Luxembourg

In English

Since early 2024 the duo Ekaterina Volkova and Julien Thomas have been working with the Dutch national climate delegation to explore dramaturgies of international climate negotiations. Their research looks into the scripts, spaces, and processes that produce (dis)agreement, and seeks strategies for alternative climate futures. 

In her talk titled 'Real Estate Poetry', Marija Marić will outline a curatorial method of working with the language of real estate speculation, critically dissecting its performative power in constructing and enabling profit-making and growth. 

During this evening, the artist duo and the research will each present their respective research, followed by a discussion on the importance of transcending disciplinary boundaries to reflect on the multifaceted nature of the global capitalist system and to explore how various forms of narration are articulated. 

Biographies

Ekaterina Volkova & Julien Thomas met at the Sandberg Instituut’s Designing Democracy temporary MA programme (2014–16), and began collaborating in 2019 on themes of distributed sense-making and interactive media. In 2022 they were selected for the Jan van Eyck Academie / Urban Futures Studio artist residency ‘Reimagining low-carbon futures’ in partnership with the IMAGE climate modelling team. They were residents of the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht from 2022–23, where they collaborated with earth science researchers to present a series of works anticipating future cloudscapes. During 2023–24 they were artists-in-residence at the Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut (KNMI) where they explored inner climates. They will be conducting artistic research alongside the Dutch national climate negotiation team in preparation for the 2024 COP in Azerbaijan. Their work has been presented at Springtij (Terschelling, 2022), Pathways to Sustainability (Utrecht, 2023), the Urgency Intensive (Maastricht, 2022), Jan van Eyck Academy Open Studios (Maastricht, 2023), the Koninklijk Academie van Wetenschap (Amsterdam, 2023) and the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (2024). 

Marija Marić is an architect and researcher based in Luxembourg. She works as a postdoctoral research associate at the Master in Architecture programme, University of Luxembourg, where she also teaches. In 2023, Marija co-curated Luxembourg Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale with an exhibition that critically unpacked the project of space mining, through the perspective of resources. Marija completed her doctoral studies at the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta), ETH Zurich in 2020. Her doctoral dissertation examined the role of communication strategists in the design, mediation and globalisation of the built environment. Marija’s work has been organised around the questions of property, media, language and the production of the built environment and urban imaginaries in the context of global capitalism and global flow of information.