Informal Architectures: A Symposium on Contemporary Art, Architecture and Spatial Culture

Presented by the Banff International Curatorial Institute, and the Walter Phillips Gallery to be held at The Banff Centre. With support from Middlesex University (London, UK).

Informal Architectures is an international, inter-disciplinary symposium that will examine issues around the representation of space in contemporary art, visual culture and architecture. The study of spatial culture at this event deals with the built environment in the broadest sense. Informal Architectures will explore the interplay between human imagination, and the spaces we have made for ourselves to live in: buildings, landscapes, gardens, museums, libraries, galleries, monuments, maps, cyberspace - as well as the artworks and writings constructed around such environments. If we understand structures - physical or imagined spaces - as containers of memory and cultural/social meaning, the study of space as culture opens up multiple discourses. Informed by art, architecture, fiction, landscape, geography, history and philosophy, this symposium will investigate contingency, failure, weakness and the unbuilt or unbuildable as analogical and metaphorical tools in better understanding the representation of space.

This symposium will propose a series of questions of interest to artists, curators, and architects, questions that are ultimately relatable and relevant to broader publics. The unbuilt in this context extends beyond the literal sense of structures that fall down - although the resonances of such architectural catastrophes are notable following September 11, 2001. Such icons are emblematic of how the subjects of this symposium touch on knowledge that extends beyond the proceedings of an academic conference.

Discussions will include:

Informal Space and Popular Imagination
Nomadism and Mobility
Ephemeral Spaces
Memory, Nostalgia, Utopia
Curating and architecture
And more...

Presentations: Dan Graham, Atelier Bow-Wow (Yoshiharu Tsukamoto), Mark Wasiuta & Marcos Sanchez, Marjetica Potrc, Lucy Gunning, Andrea Phillips, Lida Abdullah, Marie-Paule Macdonald, Trevor Boddy, Marcos Novak, Jeffrey Huang, Sandra Buckley, FILUM (Sarah Bonnemaison & Christine Macy), Alexander Pilis, Gregory Cowan, Sean Topham, Robert Kronenburg, Ana Rewakowicz, Aoife MacNamara, Paul Antick, Centre for Land Use Interpretation (Erik Knutzen), Bernie Miller, Kourosh Mahvash, Alexandra McIntosh, Jeanne Randolph, Lance Blomgren, David Ross & Rebecca Duclos, Rita McKeough, Cory Lund, Stuart Reid, Doug Moffat, Ehryn Torrell, Sigrid Dahle, Leah Garnett, Shauna McCabe, Adrienne Lai, Gailan Ngan, Dennis J. Evans, Knowles Eddy Knowles, Ryan Nordlund, Andrew Kearney, Vessna Perunovich, Andrew King, David Hoffos and others.