Jorge Otero-Pailos, "Distributed Monuments"

In this lecture, Jorge Otero-Pailos draws from a series of recent artworks through which he preserved material residues of buildings that won’t sit still in one place—including airborne atmospheric pollution, traces of sweat, water, smells, and building fragments—to discuss what they reveal about the contemporary human condition and environmental urgencies. Otero-Pailos will present a selection from his Ethics of Dust series—imprints of dust from world heritage sites—as well as “distributed monuments” he created: sculptures made from unwanted architectural materials and fragments of monuments he saved from the scrapyard. He’ll discuss his approach to art as a method of experimental preservation and argue for the importance of imagining a future for the built environment that’s centered on mutual care.

Host or Publisher Harvard University Graduate School of Design