We are in an age of polycrisis, one that is characterised by a barrage of images of catastrophic environmental collapse, vast and mind-boggling wealth inequality, brutal and unrelenting genocidal campaigns and so much more. These images, projected to us through screens daily, have become the background noise to which we move through our daily lives. Stopping every now and then to consume, protest, or take a break on a sunny beach somewhere in search of a respite. When we think about this contemporary period we find ourselves in, critics often lay the blame squarely at the feet of modern capitalism.

But such critique often does not actively interrogate the idea of how our era has come to be defined by such catastrophic conditions. And though there isn’t such a thing as a single cause or solution to problems in an increasingly complex and interconnected world, a critical analysis of the methods and armature of modern capitalism demonstrates a harrowing realisation that this all par for the course, rather than the hijacking of an inherently benevolent system.

In her new book Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts and the Death of Freedom Blakeley takes on the world’s most powerful corporations by showing how the causes of our modern crises are the intended result of our capitalist system. It’s not broken, it’s working exactly as planned.


Part of an ongoing collaboration with Dutch platform DeDependance,  we invited Grace Blakeley to speak about her book Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts and the Death of Freedom.

For this event, I curated and moderated the discussion in collaboration with DeDependance. 

PRAISE FOR VULTURE CAPITALISM

Under the title Nature of Hope, the 11th edition of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) examines nature, culture and hope from the perspective of architectural thought and action, as a driving force for social change. What does it take to face uncertainty about the future in a time of profound and multiple transformations – in other words, what are the building blocks we need to remain hopeful?

IABR 2024 took place from 29th June to 13th October 2024 and will focus on a combination of hope and nature. This choice stems from the recognition that everything begins with the Earth and that our exploitation – or rather, depletion – of the Earth, each other, and the living world is leading to multiple ecological and social crises. As humans, we can no longer place ourselves above or at a distance from nature and nor do we wish to. How can we put the knowledge and practices of spatial design at the service of the planet and all the creatures that live on it?

Joined the curatorial team for the 2024 edition of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR). The Biennale looked to consider the nature of hope from a place of pragmatism, asking what the architecture and built environment sector can learn and how the future of practice that is oriented towards a just and ecological architecture looks like.

For more information on the show, visit the Nature of Hope website.

As the urgency of the climate crisis becomes more apparent, many have been advocating for policy alternatives to the business as usual approach. Using the ongoing planetary crisis as a moment for all out transformation, all over the world, variants of the Green New Deal have emerged – drawing together policy actions to combat the climate crisis in addition to tackling economic inequality.

Part of an ongoing collaboration with Dutch platform DeDependance, and for a special collaboration with International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR), we invited Max Ajl to speak about his book A People’s Green New Deal to discuss how various green transition movements can not only tell us about where we are, but what we need to do in order to bring about actionable policy change. Ajl diagnoses the roots of the current socio-ecological crisis as emerging from a world-system dominated by the logics of capitalism and imperialism. Resolving this crisis, he therefore argues, requires nothing less than infrastructural and agricultural transformation in the Global North, and the industrial convergence between North and South. 

Max was joined by Rosemarie van Ham, who is currently working with for the municipality of Rotterdam and is the founder of Inclusive Climate Action Rotterdam (ICAR), with a mission to advocate climate justice and equality, and Ken de Cooman, co-founder of BC Architects, a hybrid practice that is designing and undertaking “acts of building” towards systemic change in the architecture and construction sector. 

For this event, I curated and moderated the discussion in collaboration with DeDependance and IABR. 

From forecasts of disastrous climate change to prophecies of evil AI superintelligences and the impending perils of genome editing, our species is increasingly concerned with the prospects of its own extinction. Less and less does the end of humanity’s future on this planet seem an area of lurid fantasy or remote speculation.  But how did this come about? When did our obsession about the end start? And what does tracing back this history teach us about our current predicament?

Part of an ongoing collaboration with Dutch platform DeDependance,  we invited Thomas Moynihan to speak about his book X-RISK: How Humanity Discovered Its Own Extinction alongside Dutch philosopher Lisa Doeland, author of Apocalypsofie.

This event was part of a collaboration iwth Architecture Institute Rotterdam (AIR) and was part of Rotterdam Architecture Month. 

For this event, I curated and moderated the discussion in collaboration with DeDependance. 

Where to begin? I have asked myself this a dozen times, gazing at a blank page. As if I needed to find the one, the only sentence that would give me entry into writing. Remove all doubts in one fell swoop - a sort of key. The meaning is sustained in the ooh and ah of a vowel on its way out. The word pertaining to the body. To ask 'why write' is to ask why breathe.

  

Contributed to and designed a collective publication as part of the FIELDNOTES Evening School programme. 

You can read the publication here.