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Section of “Territorial Map of the World” by Rafi Segal and Yonatan Cohen, 2013, (updated in 2014 following the annexation of Crimea) showing land and water (submerged land) under nations’ sovereignty and power.
Section of “Territorial Map of the World” by Rafi Segal and Yonatan Cohen, 2013, (updated in 2014 following the annexation of Crimea) showing land and water (submerged land) under nations’ sovereignty and power.

February 16, 2022, 2:00 pm3:00 pm

Rafi Segal: The Fantastic Realities of Maps

In-person at MIT in room 1-132 or virtually via Zoom

 

Join us for a guest lecture by Rafi Segal as part of 4.301: Intro to Artistic Experimentation: Drawing Then Into Now.

Maps are instruments of power that create new realities often hidden from plain sight. Through various examples, architect Rafi Segal will demonstrate how the redrawing of certain maps (specifically those depicting territorial conflicts such as Israel/Palestine, Russia/Ukraine) can expose power relations and the spatial realities they imposed, and in some cases even begin to alter them.

Rafi Segal is an architect and Associate Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at MIT. His work involves design and research on the architectural, urban and regional scale, currently focused on how emerging notions of collectivity can impact the design of buildings and cities. Segal directs Future Urban Collectives, a new design-research lab at MIT that explores the relationship between digital platforms and physical communities asking how architecture and urbanism can support and scale cohabitation, coproduction, and coexistence. Segal has exhibited his work at venues including Storefront for Art and Architecture; KunstWerk, Berlin; Witte de With, Rotterdam; Venice Biennale of Architecture; Museum of Modern Art; and the Hong Kong/Shenzhen Urbanism Biennale. He holds a PhD from Princeton University and an M.Sc and B.Arch from Technion, Israel Institute of Technology.

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This talk is part of a series of guest lectures and field trips introducing students to experimental artistic practices and critical visual thinking. This hands-on studio (4.301) lays a foundation of traditional drawing methods in order to springboard towards conceptual, critical, and transmedia approaches to mark-making.

We invite the MIT community to join us Wed April 6th for a field trip to view new artwork by Gala Porras-Kim at Harvard Radcliffe Institute with a special tour by curator Meg Rotzel; an upcoming presentation of works by indigenous artist Sara Flores (Shipibo-Conibo), one of the foremost contemporary artists emerging from the Amazonian basin, and a field trip to the MIT Museum.

Email pramada@mit.edu or mjahn@mit.edu for more info.