Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum sagittis mi eu elementum malesuada. Maecenas arcu felis, suscipit vitae mi in, posuere ultricies nunc. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut ante velit, condimentum eget erat a, suscipit porttitor nisl. Pellentesque in semper nunc
Thinking through and beyond historical relatedness, relations, and relativism of past and ongoing colonial erasure, imperial violence, and genocide, Palestinian architectural scholar and urbanist Mahdi Sabbagh and writer and genocide scholar Zoé Samudzi take on the coloniality of the museum, the ethnographic archive, and architecture. Their conversation oscillates between their work as scholars and researchers in institutional settings as well as their personal and bodily experiences within them. They each grapple with the challenges and opportunities for intervening, altering, and amending archives, museums, and other history-bearing institutions, with the awareness that they are already revisionist accounts of the past. Speaking to individual and communal practices and legacies, they discuss the role of objects and rituals in reckoning with history, narrating counter histories and the potential for solidarity and liberation across past and ongoing struggles.
This event is part of the Vera List Center Forum 2024: Correct History*, please click here for more information.
Presented by Vera List Center for Art and Politics at Schools of Public Engagement.
This program will feature ASL interpretation. Wheelchair or mobility device seating is available. Please let us know if you need any accommodation when registering or by emailing vlc@newschool.edu.
Starr Foundation Hall is on the lower level of 63 Fifth Avenue and is accessible by elevator. There are accessible restrooms on that floor and an all gender restroom available on the 1st/3rd floors.
The nearest accessible subway stations are the 14 St-Union Sq L, N, Q, R, W and the 14 St/6 Av F, M, uptown only; and the 6th Ave L is fully accessible.
The Vera List Center tries to share its programs as widely as possible, which means recording our programming and making it available on the Vera List Center and The New School websites. By attending the event, you consent to photography, audio recording, video recording and its/their release, publication, or exhibition. You can view past Vera List Center events at veralistcenter.org/events/past.
Mahdi Sabbagh is an architectural scholar and urbanist. He is a co-curator of the Palestine Festival of Literature and Editor at large at the Avery Review. He is the editor of Their Borders, Our World (Haymarket Press 2024) and is a 2023 Matakyev Research Fellow at the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands...
Zoé Samudzi is the Charles E. Scheidt Visiting Assistant Professor of Genocide Studies and Genocide Prevention at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University. She is a Research Associate at the Center for the Study of Race, Gender, and Class at the University of Johannesburg...
Committed to amplifying diverse voices, The New School offers more than a thousand public programs and events each year, providing fresh perspectives and unique learning opportunities. These lectures, exhibitions, concerts, and performances feature prominent and emerging artists, activists, and thought leaders.
Â
To receive updates about public programs and events at The New School, subscribe to our mailing list. Visit our Livestream and YouTube channels to watch select events live and recorded.
Zoé Samudzi is the Charles E. Scheidt Visiting Assistant Professor of Genocide Studies and Genocide Prevention at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University. She is a Research Associate at the Center for the Study of Race, Gender, and Class at the University of Johannesburg, and a critic in Painting/Printmaking at Yale University and Painting at the Rhode Island School of Design. She is also a writer and an associate editor with Parapraxis Magazine.
Mahdi Sabbagh is an architectural scholar and urbanist. He is a co-curator of the Palestine Festival of Literature and Editor at large at the Avery Review. He is the editor of Their Borders, Our World (Haymarket Press 2024) and is a 2023 Matakyev Research Fellow at the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands. His work has been published in the Journal of Public Culture, Jerusalem Quarterly, Curbed, Architecture of the Territory (Kaph Books 2022), Open Gaza (AUC Press 2021), the Funambulist, Arab Urbanism, Awham Magazine, and PLATFORM. Mahdi is a Doctoral Student at Columbia University and holds a Masters in Architecture from Yale.
Carlos Motta’s multidisciplinary practice documents the social conditions and political struggles of sexual, gender, and ethnic minority communities to challenge normative discourses through visibility and representation. As a historian of untold narratives and an archivist of repressed histories, Motta is committed to in-depth research on the struggles of post-colonial subjects and societies. Motta received his MFA from Bard College and completed the Whitney Independent Study Program in 2006. His work has been the subject of survey exhibitions, including Carlos Motta: Formas de libertad at the Museo de Arte Moderno de MedellÃn, Colombia (2017), which traveled to Matucana100, Santiago, Chile, in 2018, and Carlos Motta: For Democracy There Must Be Love Röda Sten Konsthall in Gothenburg, Sweden (2015), and a 2022 solo survey exhibition Your Monsters, Our Idols at the Wexner Center of the Arts, Columbus, OH. In 2019, Motta was appointed tenure-track Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Practice at Pratt Institute’s Fine Arts Department. Carlos Motta: History’s Backrooms, a 20-year career monograph, was published by SKIRA in June 2020. His work is part of Marco Scotini’s Disobedience Archive at the sixtieth Venice Biennale. Motta will be the subject of a mid-career survey exhibition at Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain, in 2025. Motta contributed to the VLC exhibition OURS: Democracy in the Age of Branding and several other programs.
