Hostile Environment(s) – Designing Hostility, Building Refugia is an expanded programme investigating the political ecology of migration and border violence. Through a series of lectures, workshops, screenings, commissioned texts and other materials delivered both online and in-person it builds upon the project initiated by architect Lorenzo Pezzani in the context of the One Year-Long Research Project and exhibition commissioned by ar/ge kunst, Bolzano, and co-produced with Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design & Architecture, Hasselt. This website operates as an index and archive of the materials produced in 2020-21.
The term “hostile environment” refers to legislation introduced in the UK with the aim of denying illegalised migrants access to work, housing, services and education. Far from being an exceptional condition, however, this process of making (urban) space unliveable for some resonates with the ways in which certain “natural” terrains (oceans, deserts, mountains) and their material geographies have been weaponized to deter and expel migrants.
Inviting scholars, researchers, artists, local organizations and activist groups, this expanded programme seeks to capture these distant but interconnected processes, investigating how certain forms of racialized violence have become as pervasive as the climate. We want to explore how a generalized atmosphere of hostility affects different modes of existence, particularly those that are classified as alien as opposed to native. We want to try to attune our senses and sensibilities to forms of suffering that are ordinary rather than catastrophic and crisis-laden, forms of violence that are invisible not because they are hidden, but because constructed by powerful actors as legitimate through relentless exposure and through the use of language. In doing this we seek to ask what forms of radical hospitality and sanctuary might still be possible when all refugia are in the process of being destroyed.
Hostile Environment(s) – Designing Hostility, Building Refugia is edited by Silvia Franceschini (curator, Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture), Roberto Gigliotti (professor, unibz – Faculty of Design and Art), Emanuele Guidi (artistic director, ar/ge kunst) and Lorenzo Pezzani (co-founder of Forensic Oceanography and lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London).
It was commissioned and co-produced by ar/ge kunst, Bolzano, and the unibz – Faculty of Design and Art in collaboration with Z33 – House of Contemporary Art, Design & Architecture, Hasselt.
The online platform was designed by Stefania Rigoni and Martina Soffritti.
Hostile Environment(s) – Designing Hostility, Building Refugia is an expanded programme investigating the political ecology of migration and border violence. Through a series of lectures, workshops, screenings, commissioned texts and other materials delivered both online and in-person it builds upon the project initiated by architect Lorenzo Pezzani in the context of the One Year-Long Research Project and exhibition commissioned by ar/ge kunst, Bolzano, and co-produced with Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design & Architecture, Hasselt. This website operates as an index and archive of these materials and will regularly be updated with new content.
The term “hostile environment” refers to legislation introduced in the UK with the aim of denying illegalised migrants access to work, housing, services and education. Far from being an exceptional condition, however, this process of making (urban) space unliveable for some resonates with the ways in which certain “natural” terrains (oceans, deserts, mountains) and their material geographies have been weaponized to deter and expel migrants.
Inviting scholars, researchers, artists, local organizations and activist groups, this expanded programme seeks to capture these distant but interconnected processes, investigating how certain forms of racialized violence have become as pervasive as the climate. We want to explore how a generalized atmosphere of hostility affects different modes of existence, particularly those that are classified as alien as opposed to native. We want to try to attune our senses and sensibilities to forms of suffering that are ordinary rather than catastrophic and crisis-laden, forms of violence that are invisible not because they are hidden, but because constructed by powerful actors as legitimate through relentless exposure and through the use of language. In doing this we seek to ask what forms of radical hospitality and sanctuary might still be possible when all refugia are in the process of being destroyed.
Hostile Environment(s) – Designing Hostility, Building Refugia is edited by Silvia Franceschini (curator, Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture), Roberto Gigliotti (professor, unibz – Faculty of Design and Art), Emanuele Guidi (artistic director, ar/ge kunst) and Lorenzo Pezzani (co-founder of Forensic Oceanography and lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London).
It was commissioned and co-produced by ar/ge kunst, Bolzano, and the unibz – Faculty of Design and Art in collaboration with Z33 – House of Contemporary Art, Design & Architecture, Hasselt.
The online platform was designed by Stefania Rigoni and Martina Soffritti.