Annual General Meeting 2022

Notice is hereby given that the Annual General Meeting of the Registered Members of the Architectural Association (Inc.) will be held in the lecture hall at the AA, 36 Bedford Square, London and via Zoom on Monday, 5th December at 6.30pm GMT.

The meeting will be followed by a short presentation by Albert Brenchat Aguilar to give members a preview of the upcoming exhibition that he has curated titled As Hardly Found in the Art of Tropical Architecture which will be held in the AA Gallery from 20 January to 25 March.

This year’s AGM will offer both a preview of the research and ideas that have shaped this exhibition tracing the ‘hardly found’ marks in the Department of Tropical Studies archive within the AA Collections, as well as an occasion to bring our global membership together to celebrate the achievements of our community over the past year ahead of the festive season.

Schedule
6.30pm – Introduction to the AGM (President)
6.35pm – Apologies and Declarations of Interest – (President)
6.37pm – Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held on the 31st January 2022 -­ (President)
6.40pm – Trustees Report & Financial Statements for the Year Ended 31st July 2022 for AA Inc. - Presentation & Receipt - (School Director and Chair of Finance & Audit Committee)
6.50pm – Appointment of the Auditors for 2022/2023 - (Chair of Finance & Audit Committee)
6.55pm – Any Other Business – (All)
7.00pm – Close of AGM
7.15pm – Presentation by Albert Brenchat Aguilar of the research and ideas behind his upcoming exhibition As Hardly Found in the Art of Tropical Architecture, in conversation with Head of Public Engagement Manijeh Verghese
8.00pm – Mulled wine and mince pies in the Lecture Hall

For more information on the presentation:

Three ‘As Hardly Found’ Histories: A-head-into-a-head, a head out of the frame, and the edge between oneself and the rest of the world

This talk presents three documents in the archive of the Department of Tropical Studies at the AA that will feature in the exhibition As Hardly Found in the Art of Tropical Architecture. From these, three short histories have been constructed that challenge the AA’s aesthetic, political identity, and ecological preconceptions of the Global South at the time.

‘As Hardly Found’ refers to the methodology of crafting these histories and the subsequent exhibition. ‘To find’ is to stumble upon something. To take something ‘as found’ is to appreciate it for what it is: ordinary matter without any symbolic meaning, shaped by human labour and the future material of something else. If the ‘as found’ object is a report, we can appreciate the composition of the page, the ink, the weight of the paper, and the aesthetic assemblage of letters and words — instead of the meaning of the words themselves. ‘As hardly found’ twists this concept, so that the matter we care about is that which is difficult to find, which speaks of hard unacknowledged work, and the potential of the work, as well as the many who make the archive possible.

Albert Brenchat Aguilar is a lecturer (teaching) at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London and tutor at the Architectural Association. Previously, he co-curated the public programme and publications of the Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL, edited the digital platform Ceramic Architectures and worked as an architect in Bombas Gens Arts Centre. He is a CHASE-funded PhD student at Birkbeck and the Architectural Association with the project ‘Non/Being Human in Global Architecture: The Sociogenic Principle in the sociology of international planning c. 1950-80’. His project As Hardly Found in the Art of Tropical Architecture comprises an exhibition in Winter 2023 at the AA and a book published by AA Publications in Spring 2023. His coedited book Wastiary: A bestiary of waste will be published by UCL Press in Winter 2023.