The upcoming AA Gallery exhibition As Hardly Found, in the Art of Tropical Architecture, which will take place in 2023, has been awarded an Graham Foundation research grant.

The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts fosters the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture and society.

The exhibition will explore four ad-hoc curatorial strategies to rethink Architectural Association’s Department of Tropical Studies aesthetics that have shaped a Western perception of the Global South at the AA for the past 70 years. The exhibition will feature co-existing ecological aesthetics across London, Kumasi and Lagos, and a wide range of artists from the Global South.

The AA will rely mostly on private collections for the exhibition, which will remain free and open to the public in the AA Gallery at Bedford Square, London. This will also be an opportunity to engage architects in the histories of art that shaped the architectural discipline.

Image: Congo Bateke Mask. Courtesy of Musee del’Homme Paris and Hugh Cronin