ACTIONING SUMMIT 8: How to repair

The eighth and ultimate ACTIONING SUMMIT will discuss the expert knowledge and methodological that surround questions of repair, with several key experts on the topic of reparations: Dr. Ron Daniels (NAARC), Marjetica Potrč, Paulo Tavares (autonoma, University of Brasília), Mabel Wilson (GSAPP, AAADS), and Liesbeth Zegveld.

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

Dr. Ron Daniels is President of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century and Distinguished Lecturer Emeritus, York College City University of New York.

Marjetica Potrč s an artist, architect, and educator based in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her practice, which ranges from visual essays and architectural case studies to on-site community-based projects, cuts across disciplines to merge art, architecture, ecology, and anthropology in work that emphasizes individual and community empowerment, problem-solving tools, and strategies for the future that transcend the neoliberal agreement.

From 2011 to 2018, she was a professor of social practice at the University of Fine Arts/HFBK in Hamburg, where she taught Design for the Living World, a class on participatory practices. Her work has been exhibited extensively, including at the Venice Biennale (1993, 2003, 2009, and 2021), the Biennale of Sydney (2022), and the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale in Riyadh (2024). Many of her projects, such as her exhibition at the Fragmentos Space of Art and Memory in Bogotá, Colombia (2024), focus on the relationship between human society and nature, specifically on the shift from being a society of owners to a society of caretakers. She has received numerous honours for her artwork and artistic research, notably the Hugo Boss Prize (2000) and the Vera List Center for Arts and Politics Fellowship at The New School in New York (2007).

Paulo Tavares is an architect, author, and educator. His practice dwells at the frontiers between architecture, visual cultures and advocacy. Operating through multiple media, Tavares’s projects have been featured in various exhibitions and publications worldwide, including Oslo Architecture Triennial, Istanbul Design Biennale, São Paulo Art Biennial, and the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023. He is the author of books questioning the colonial legacies of modernity, including Des-Habitat (2019), Lucio Costa era Racista? (2022), and Derechos No-Humanos (2022). The curatorial project Terra, in collaboration with Gabriela de Matos, was awarded the Golden Lion for best national participation at La Biennale di Venecia 2023, and Tavares was selected by ArchDaily as one of the Best New Practices of 2023. He was co-curator of the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial and is part of the advisory curatorial board of Sharjah Biennial 2023. Tavares teaches at the University of Brasília and leads the spatial advocacy agency autônoma.

Liesbeth Zegveld is Professor of War Reparations at the University of Amsterdam and a lawyer at Prakken d'Oliveira Human Rights Lawyers, where she specializes in liability for human rights violations. In particular she’s committed to victims of war. As head of the international law & human rights department, she has worked on numerous high-profile cases, focussing on war victims. She set up the Nuhanovic Foundation, aimed at facilitating access to justice for war victims.

In 2011 she received the Clara Meijer-Wichmann medal in recognition of her commitment to defending human rights, and in 2014 she received the Amsterdam Dean’s Award. In 2016 she was voted ‘Most Valued Lawyer’ of the year.

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.