Wet Urbanisms

Inspired by the publication of André Tavares’s new book Architecture Follows Fish: An Amphibious History of the North Atlantic, the panel discussion “Wet Urbanisms” brings Tavares in conversation with a group of thinkers—interdisciplinary artist Susan Blight, architects Tei Carpenter and Jesse LeCavalier, environmental historian Connie Y. Chiang, digital artist and digital media scholar Nettrice Gaskins, artist Daniel Keller, architectural historian Anna Renken, art historian James Merle Thomas, and architect and researcher Zhi Ray Wang—whose work examines architectural designs and environmental stewardship practices that bridge the marine-terrestrial border.

“Wet Urbanisms” continues a line of research that the Ambasz Institute began with its exhibition Emerging Ecologies: Architecture and the Rise of Environmentalism, which featured projects by Ant Farm, Carolyn Dry, and Wolf Hilbertz that proposed constructing human and interspecies habitats in aquatic environments. In their marine imaginings, these designers ventured into territory underexplored by the field at large; while over seventy percent of the Earth’s surface is covered by water, scant attention has been paid to the relationship between architecture and its watery surrounds. Join us at “Wet Urbanisms” where the invited panelists will shine a light on the many ways—whether it be through neoliberal Seasteading fantasies, underwater afrofuturist mythologies, public aquariums, or extractive fishing industries—that architects and others have imagined the relationship between our terrestrial lives and the waters that surround us.

Event Location:

Museum of Modern Art

Celeste Bartos Theater

4 West 54th Street, New York, NY, USA

Host or Publisher The Emilio Ambasz Institute