Prof Kirin Makker to talk about her project, Womb Chair Speaks

This paper examines the theoretical and methodological foundations of the Womb Chair Speaks project, an ongoing collaborative installation artwork which remakes Eero Saarinen’s 1948 Womb Chair and reimagines the womb’s cultural phenomenology (www.wombchairspeaks.net). This paper provides an overview of the project’s roots and the historical background of mid-century modernism’s erasures of women’s labour and artistry. The project seeks to affirm individual experiences while embracing communal work and knowledge, forming an antithesis to modernism’s smoothed, anonymous standardisation and its associations with singular genius.

Details: Friday 8 March 2024, 12.15-1.00 p.m. in 421-619 in the Architecture and Planning Building, Waipapa Taumata Rau, 26 Symonds Street, Auckland.

Kirin Makker is Professor of American Studies at Hobart William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY and an endowarrior. An artist trained as an architect, and a scholar in critical space theory, Makker works to bridge disciplines and their methods of producing knowledge. At her institution, she teaches university courses which investigate social power and architectural spaces. She combines traditional scholarship with creative practice in hand drawing, sewing, and installation art. Her research on these topics takes several forms, including designing and leading participatory art projects, exhibiting solo artworks, and producing scholarly writing on women’s and black history in design and urban planning. For information on her current scholarly art project see www.wombchairspeaks.net.