The Global South is not a region. It is an archipelago that has survived empire, colonialism, and capitalist extraction. Each island embodies a struggle to sustain alternative ways of being in the world—a rebellion against extinction that has been going on for centuries. The inaugural Sharjah Architecture Triennial, titled Rights of Future Generations, is an attempt to look for some of these conditions, or sites of resistance to dominant modes of living. Which ecologies support the current state of things, and which ecologies can resist it? Which conditions produce non-exploitative relationships between humans and other beings, and between those who are here, those who have gone, and those yet to come? Architecture has a fundamental role in imagining other, less extractive forms of coexistence in the face of the climate crisis. The possibility to think across extended lineages and complex networks of kinship is at the heart of this challenge.

Conditions is a collaboration between the Sharjah Architecture Triennial and Africa Is a Country, Ajam Media Collective, ArtReview, e-flux architecture, Jadaliyya, and Mada Masr, within the context of its inaugural edition, Rights of Future Generations. To view the essays from all of the collaborating platforms, click here.