Studio update – Spring 2022

This academic year I am on sabbatical leave finishing three long-running projects and planning to focus more on applications of the archaeological imagination to matters of common and pressing contemporary concern, especially through design foresight and futures literacy. This is why I have put to one side my critical commentary on all things archaeological and…

On the politics of (museum) exhibition

More about the future (potential) of museums I was at a very thought provoking talk today at Bard Graduate Center [Link]. Yannis Hamilakis told us about an exhibition he has helped curate that is currently running at Haffenreffer Gallery, Brown University USA. It is called Transient Matter: Assemblages of Migration in the Mediterranean. Yannis leads…

Boijmans Collections Depot – teaser

The revolutionary new collections depot for Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam opens later this year. Here is en evocative glimpse of the roof top. More about this remarkable project – [Link] [Link] [Link] [Link]

the valencies of Neo-Classical

I have been avoiding giving any attention to the last days of Trump. Jody Maxmin, however, directed me to an executive order this last weekend concerning classical architecture. Here’s the report in the New York Times: Trump Makes Classical Style the Default for Federal Buildings An executive order stopped short of banning modernist architecture, but…

In a world of things

A new video from Zoe Laughlin (Institute of Making), Mike Pearson (National Theatre of Wales), and John Rowley (artist, theatre maker, performer). Active matter, merging and fusions, processes and manipulations, experiences and immaterialities. An extraordinary exploration of lifeworld in times of viral pandemic. Watch out for our forthcoming “Thinking through Things” – [Link]

Futures Literacy: how to decolonize the future

December 8 – 12 2020. Tamara (Carleton) and I were at the UNESCO Futures Literacy Summit [Link] representing our research group – Foresight at Stanford [Link]. We are standing for design foresight and what we are now calling creative pragmatics (in our forthcoming book – [Link]). Competencies, tools and techniques, mindsets not for predicting the…