“Architect” comes from the Latin word architectus, which comes from the Greek ἀρχιτέκτων (architéktōn). Architéktōn is composed of two parts: ἀρχι (archi: to be the first, who commands) and τέκτων (tecton: mason, builder). That is, the boss who sends the masons. Fabian Dejtiar, “Etymology in Architecture: Tracing the Language of Design to its Roots,” ArchDaily, July 30, 2018, ➝.
Olivier Marboeuf and Ruth Wilson Gilmore, “Fragments of Repair/Gathering II: ‘The Body’s Legacies, Pt. 2: The Postcolonial Body’,” (screening and conversation, BAK, Utrecht, La Colonie/La Dynamo de Banlieues Bleues, Pantin, Paris, and Lisbon, May 2, 2021 ➝).
Patti Anahory, Anna Abengowe, Tuliza Sindi and Mawena Yehouessi, “Her(e) otherwise – Bordeaux” (conversation, arc en rêve centre d'architecture, Bordeaux, France, July 26, 2022, ➝).
Quote taken from arc en rêve, the Chicago Architecture Biennial, and e-flux Architecture’s 2022 invitation email to contribute to Commons, an editorial series of commissioned essays, which this one is part of. In both cases, the question is and remains: what does it mean for an institution to choose who can talk about a community, as foreign commentators/experts to a space of commoning that cannot appear on those platforms for the risk of exposing its shadowy nature and thus disappearing again. Why should we accompany each lived experience with an official text?
An “us,” that ain’t a matter of separation but humility: because WE (nor anyone really) WON’T ever reach (out to) “everyone”, but that is fine.
See Suites décoloniales - S’enfuir de la plantation, and especially the chapter entitled “La leçon du Diamant” (163-172), where the author revisits a series of unboltings of colonial statues in the public space, first in Martinique and later in France (or more precisely the French hexagone), in the spring and summer of 2020, notably and as part of an act of ecological memorial healing. Olivier Marboeuf, Suites décoloniales - S’enfuir de la plantation (Rennes: Editions du commun, September 2022).
See note 4.
Mainly because you usually don’t have the time-is-money to meet (although some of us DO benefit from some privileges: having a job, academic degrees, pluri-citizenships; speaking English, being able-bodied, etc.
Our idea was quite simply to pick up a location/building/artefact/etc. in Bordeaux as a pretext for observation and discussion among us. Those were moments of knowledge and emotional sharing, from our plural perspectives; taking our time, which was shared the day after during a “public event,” yet necessarily at a low ebb: when gathering is to be reenacted, represented, recaptured and shrunken in time.