Urtzi Grau & Guillermo Fernández-Abascal – Folk Costumes, Indo-Pacific Air | Book Launch
To celebrate the launch of Urtzi Grau & Guillermo Fernández-Abascal's latest publication, Folk Costumes, Indo-Pacific Air (Art Paper Editions), Perimeter is thrilled to be presenting the Melbourne book launch in store. Taking place at Perimeter HQ (734 High St, Thornbury) from 3pm, Saturday September 17, the launch will include a panel discussion between Urtzi Grau, Guillermo Fernández-Abascal, Dr Ricarda Bigolin and Colby Vexler.
EVENT DETAILS
Perimeter HQ
734 High St, Thornbury VIC
Saturday September 17, 2022
From 3pm
This is a free event, with no reservations required
ABOUT THE BOOK
In the months that preceded the global spread of COVID-19, a series of airborne events transformed the atmosphere of the Indo-Pacific region; the bushfire smoke on the East coast of Australia, the tear gas used in the Santiago de Chile and Hong Kong protests, the Indian Supreme Court ruling on Delhi’s pollution failures, and activists covering iconic statues with respirators across Johannesburg and Pretoria. All these incidents map the political struggles taking place in the region’s air, triggering a proliferation of masked faces avant la lettre.
The publication Folk Costumes, Indo-Pacific Air is an account of the region’s masked state. It brings together culturally and geographically diverse case studies exploring air’s effects on the body to describe the emergent wearable architectures it produces. Considered as folk costumes, these wearables are socio-technical constructions that mediate our relationship with the environment—they negotiate our daily struggles, emancipatory efforts, and emotional inner-lives. Discussing air as a political matter, the book collects contributions by scientists, writers, historians, architects, photographers, and dilettantes, encouraging readers to fly freely between visual and conceptual affinities to create a map of a region in the making.
Edited by Urtzi Grau and Guillermo Fernández-Abascal with contributions by Dean Cross, Hamish McIntosh, Peter McNeil,Hélène Frichot,La Escuela Nunca y Otros Futuros, Lidia Morawska, Juan Elvira, Matthew Connors, Ricarda Bigolin, Peter Irga and Fraser Torpy, Sharbendu De, Enoch Cheng, Samaneh Moafi, Sumayya Vally,Matteo Dal Vera, and Achille Mbembe.
PANEL MEMBERS
GUILLERMO FERNÁNDEZ-ABASCAL is an architect, co-director of GFA2 and GFA, and Practice Fellow at the University of Sydney. Based in Sydney, Australia and Santander, Spain, his recent work destabilises the dichotomy of research versus buildings and includes diagrams, stories, exhibitions, films, prototypes, housing, and public buildings across the globe.
URTZI GRAU is an architect, academic at UTS, and founding partner of Fake Industries and GFA. His research explores the role of architecture in responding to critical challenges impacting the Indo-Pacific region, including climate justice, immigration, land rights and extractive economics.
DR RICARDA BIGOLIN is a practice-based researcher, educator and designer, as well as an Associate Professor and the Associate Dean of Fashion and Textiles Design at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Her research explores the social, cultural, ethical and political context of fashion production and consumption. She interrogates fashion languages across multiple mediums as a means of exploring the broader influence and everyday impact of fashion.
COLBY VEXLER is an architectural researcher and practitioner. He has led M.Arch studio 'A Soft Focus on Domestic Things' at the Melbourne School of Design since 2017. Colby is also the founder and editor of online contemporary architectural publication, cc:Journal.