Reading: Curated Decay with Jia Yi Gu and Rosario Talevi

Saturday, January 7, 2023
4:00 PM 5:00 PM

Fitzpatrick-Leland House & Various Locations Los Angeles, CA, 90046 United States (map)

Google Calendar ICS

Reading: Curated Decay with Jia Yi Gu and Rosario Talevi has been postponed due to illness. Please check in soon for the new date.

Contemporary preservation often prioritizes principles of permanence in the production and significance of cultural memory. With an alternative perspective, this reading circle invites you to explore philosophies of ruination as meaningful heritage culture. We will gather and read together a selection of fragments of Caitlin DeSilvey’s “Curated Decay: Heritage Beyond Saving”. In her book, DeSilvey challenges conventional ideas around preservation and heritage conservation by acknowledging other agencies in the process of decay.

Reading group discussions take place in a salon-style. Attendees are encouraged (but not required) to come prepared, having read an excerpt announced and made public ahead of time. Copies of the text will be provided.

CURATED DECAY by CAITLIN DESILVEY

Curated Decay chronicles Caitlin DeSilvey’s travels to places where experiments in curated ruination and creative collapse are under way, or under consideration. Through accessible and engaging discussion of specific places and their stories, it traces how cultural memory is generated in encounters with ephemeral artifacts and architectures.

An interdisciplinary reframing of the concept of the ruin that combines historical and philosophical depth with attentive storytelling, Curated Decay represents the first attempt to apply new theories of materiality and ecology to the concerns of critical heritage studies.

SUBJECT STUDIES

Subject Studies is a new annual series offering practical and non-practical public engagements, initiated by the MAK Center for Art and Architecture. Its inaugural theme, Reorientations, developed by MAK Center Director Jia Yi Gu and Rosario Talevi, directs questions towards institutional habits, routines and practices through perspectives of care, repair and transformation.

This program is supported in part by the Department of Cultural Affairs, Los Angeles (DCA), PICE AC/E's Programme for the Internationalization of Spanish Culture and Thomas Mann House.

Image Credit: TAKK Architecture.