Molendinar Lecture 2023: Unbuilding Hadrian's Wall - Mary Ellen Carroll

Unbuilding Hadrian's Wall – Glasgow’s pathmarking opportunities from the Mediaeval to the present concerning climate and migration in the built environment and as the work of art.

Conceptual artist/activist Mary Ellen Carroll (MEC, studios) lives and works in New York City. The work occupies the disciplines of architecture/design, policy, writing, performance and technology. Ongoing durational projects, include prototype180.org and PUBLIC UTILITY 2.0 for example, which stand at the intersection of conceptual art, architecture, public policy, and politics/social justice. Working frequently with unsuspecting materials that range from public policy and land use or the lack thereof in Houston, as in the case with prototype 180. Or, the borderless and non-visible real estate of radio frequency for Public Utility 2.0 as a form of 21st century work of land art, albeit for the airwaves. Teaching, lecturing and public presentations in architecture, art, and policy are an important part of Carroll’s work, stating that, “architecture is inherently a political act.” Institutions have included architecture/public policy programs at Rice University, Columbia University, Harvard University and the DIA Art Foundation amongst others. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, the work is in public and private collections internationally  and Carroll was the 2022 Cynthia Hazen Polsky And Leon Polsky Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome and will realize a new book and series of works for FM that will include shortwave and involved research and documentation of the Vatican’s extra territory that is utilized for transmission. Working on immigration / refugee rights and policy for over 3 decades at the southern border of the US / Mexico and more recently in the Mediterranean, Carroll collaborated with artist Lucas Michael on DYKWTCA. indestructible language —the large scale neon work initially commissioned in 2006 by the Precipice Alliance addresses the existential crisis of the climate emergency and was installed to coincide with the 2021 UN Climate Summit—COP26 in Glasgow and will remain on The Schoolhouse, a Victorian building that fronts Scotland’s busiest motorway (M8) and visible by millions of people, physically and virtually. For 2030 | Visions Carroll collaborated with Meredith Finkelstein on the EthicalImagination.com to develop a new tool for collective decision making that utilizes the blockchain. They minted the token EI, that will treat ideas as currency and a more representative mechanism to vote and actuate the ideas through apportioned voting. A retrospective of Carroll’s work is planned for 2025 and will be announced in the new year.

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