**Save the Date: 2023 Fitch Colloquium**
**Friday, September 22, 1:30pm – 7:00pm**
**Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall (1172 Amsterdam Ave.)**
Preserving the atmosphere is widely considered today as a civilizational imperative, and the central pillar in humanity’s ability to prevent the existential threat of climate change. Yet what is meant by the terms “preservation” or “atmosphere” in this case, and the potential opened up by bringing them into mutual proximity, is seldom seriously questioned or explored. The result is that the most outdated preservation ideas are being uncritically floated as the only solutions, such as returning the atmosphere to its “original” pre-industrial condition. If the consensus in learned preservation circles is that such returns to the “original condition” of heritage are both technically impossible, deontologically questionable, and ethically undesirable, then a serious rethinking of these terms, as well as more creative and inclusive approaches to preserving the atmosphere are sorely needed.
The 2023 Fitch Colloquium will bring prominent figures from preservation, art, architecture, science, and technology whose influential work is helping to redefine what the atmosphere is understood to be.
Speakers include:
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Michael Morris, curator, co-creator of The World Weather Network, and Co-Director emeritus of Artangel (UK)
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Gisela Winckler, Lamont Research Professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Associate Director of the Geochemistry Division
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Shona Illingworth, artist and Professor in Art, Film, and Media at the University of Kent (UK), and co-founder of Air Space Tribunal
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Giuliana Bruno, historian, Emmet Blakeney Gleason Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University
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Nerea Calvillo, architect, Associate Professor at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, University of Warwick (UK), Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia GSAPP
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David Gissen, author, designer, Professor of Architecture and Urban History at The New School
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Lindsey Wikstrom, architect, co-founder of Mattaforma
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Mark Wasiuta, curator, co-director of the Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices program at Columbia GSAPP
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Anna Lea Albright, Postdoctoral Researcher, Laboratory for Dynamic Meteorology, Sorbonne University (France)
The 2023 Fitch Colloquium is organized by Jorge Otero-Pailos, Professor and Director of the Historic Preservation Program, GSAPP, Columbia University.
This event qualifies for AIA credits. Free and open to the public.
