What a joy! Manifestos are "companion species"
- Sara Ahmed, Living a Feminist Life
Copenhagen Architecture Festival (CAFx) has gathered 45 manifestos from all over the world, questioning the role of architecture in imagining and creating a sustainable future. These manifestos have inspired the exhibition Architecture and the Art of Agitation, an exploration of the history, function and aesthetic of the architecture manifesto as a means of stirring up utopian impulses, future fantasies and desires for historical ruptures.
At times clear-cut and programmatic, at times poetic, the language of the manifesto is making a comeback: Dissensus, loudness, persuasion, and provocation are once again in vogue. Communicative techniques once confined to the worlds of grassroots politics, totalitarian regimes and artistic avant-gardes, are now infiltrating the rhetorics of time-honored cultural institutions and established architectural organs.
Reevaluating the manifesto genre and its recent renaissance, Architecture and the Art of Agitation invites you to question where the language of architectural imagination stands today. What are the social, cultural and political functions of the manifesto? Has the manifesto become powerless in a society where even those in power write manifestos?
We will examine the manifesto's discursive relations and utopian potential through a five-part Reading Club hosted during the exhibition by theorists, practitioners, activists and artists.
Manifesto Reading Club Series
- 27 April Exhibition Opening and CAFx Manifesto Reading Club Vol. I: Le Corbusier vs. Koolhaas
- 2 May CAFx Manifesto Reading Club Vol. II : The New Neighbourhood Manifesto
- 10 May CAFx Manifesto Reading Club Vol. III: Revisiting the Situationists with David Pinder
- 16 May CAFx Manifesto Reading Club Vol. IV: Patrik Schumacher’s Libertarian Parametricism and Anna Heringer’s Call for a Humane Design Culture
