Imagining Otherwise with Huda Tayob

Titled after Lola Olufemi’s “Experiments in Imagining Otherwise”, this lecture series learns from established practices that shift the focus from European contexts or knowledge systems and instead champions decolonial epistemologies and methodologies. We will navigate the space between what is and what could be, weaving through an exploration of identities and the possibility of living otherwise.

In this event Huda Tayob will share research on migrant, minor and subaltern architectures and postcolonial and decolonial theory. She will talk about co-curating an archive of African histories and places through the Archive of Forgetfulness - a pan-African digital exhibition and podcast series which ran from September 2020 and December 2021. The project is a space for interrogating the archival gesture, from the bodily and spoken, to the written and performed. As a collection of work centered on the African continent, the various contributors interrogate archival gestures, raise questions on personal and political histories that emerge through borders, and resurface forgotten conversations. In these works, archival labour and memory-work are understood simultaneously as deeply political, personal and speculative.

Huda Tayob is a South African architectural historian. She is currently a lecturer at the University of Manchester, and has previously taught at the University of Cape Town, the University of Johannesburg and the Bartlett School of Architecture. Her research focuses on minor, migrant and subaltern architectures, centred on the African continent. She is co-curator of the open access curriculum Racespacearchitecture.org, and co-curator of the digital exhibition, Archive of Forgetfulness.

Image: Sarah de Villiers, 2021

The Imagining Otherwise event series coincides with the As Hardly Found in the Art of Tropical Architecture exhibition on display in the AA Gallery from 20 January to Saturday 25 March 2023.

Please get in touch to let us know of any access requirements that you have. If you are unable to attend physically but would like to join the event remotely please email publicprogramme@aaschool.ac.uk.