ACTIONING SUMMIT 7: How to project disability forward

The seventh ACTIONING SUMMIT, co-curated with Ignacio G. Galán (Barnard), will discuss the expert knowledge and methodological questions required to project disability forward. Speakers will be Edmund Asiedu (DOT), Ignacio G. Galán (Barnard College, Columbia University), David Gissen (Parsons/The New School), and Aimi Hamraie (Vanderbilt).

This event is coordinated with the Keating Visiting Architect lecture by Jeffrey Mansfield at Barnard College on Wednesday, March 26, at 6:30 PM.

This lecture will be hosted in Wood Auditorium at Columbia GSAPP and live-streamed on GSAPP’s YouTube channel.

Edmund Asiedu is a proud person with disability and a passionate accessibility, disability inclusion, and inclusive mentoring advocate who raises awareness on the needs of persons with disabilities in educational institutions, workplaces and cities. He uses he/him/his pronouns. Born and raised in Ghana, Edmund studied at the Ghana Institute of Journalism. He relocated to the United States in 2010. Before joining New York City Department of Transportation as the Accessibility Policy Advisor, he held positions at Columbia University School of Public Health, Berkeley College, Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation, Lehman College, National Disability Rights Network, and Ghana Society of the Physically Disabled. Edmund holds a Bachelor of Social Work from the Lehman College and a Master of Public Administration from Baruch College School of Public and International Affairs. He served on the Disability Access and Accommodations Committee at the Columbia University Medical Center. Edmund currently serves as the Co-chair of the Advisory Council of the National Disability Mentoring Coalition in the U.S.

David Gissen is a Professor of Architecture and Urban History at The New School’s Parsons School of Design. His new book, The Architecture of Disability: Buildings, Cities, and Landscapes beyond Access (University of Minnesota Press, 2023), presents a new way to think about the history of architecture and architectural theory, which centers disability and defamiliarizes the way we look at the everyday built environment.

Aimi Hamraie Aimi Hamraie (they/them) is Associate Professor of Medicine, Health, & Society and American Studies at Vanderbilt University, and director of the Critical Design Lab. Their work focuses on disability culture, technoscience, and critical access. Hamraie is author of Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability (University of Minnesota Press, 2017). Hamraie is the host of the Contra* podcast on disability and design. They are also a member of the US Access Board and a 2022 United States Artists Fellow.

The ACTIONING SUMMITS are an unprecedented effort to affirm how architecture, planning, development, and preservation are anticipating desirable and alternative futures. During a period of eight months, these summits will convene activists, architects, artists, designers, developers, ethnographers, historians, planners, policymakers, politicians, thinkers, and community organizers from around the world to address together eight crucial methodological shifts in the way the disciplines of the built environment operate and collaborate with each other.

The summits will offer a space and opportunity to situate specialized knowledge within specific histories and contexts. During the ACTIONING SUMMITS, participants will discuss a concrete methodological shift elaborated through the tools, practices, protocols, and forms of engagement that have unfolded as part of specific projects or processes they have actively participated in.

Please visit GSAPP’s event calendar to learn more about each ACTIONING SUMMIT. All summits will be live streamed on GSAPP’s YouTube channel.

The ACTIONING SUMMITS are curated by Andrés Jaque, Dean, and Bart-Jan Polman, Director of Exhibitions and Public Programming and Curator of the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery.