• Conférence
  • Partenariat
19.12.23 18h30

Compulsive Desires: On Lithium Extraction and Rebellious Mountains

Lecture by Marina Otero Verzier (architect and researcher, Columbia University GSAPP)
@ luca - Luxembourg Center for Architecture
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© Specht Studio, 2023
Western energy dreams are too often realised at the expense of the lives of local communities and their ecosystems. Under the pretext of progress, these groups are portrayed as backward; their bodies and territories equated to resources to be extracted, sacrificed to the logics of profit and ‘development’.

Post-fossil fuel green futures are no exception. They still depend on extractivist industries that open wounds in mountains and communities, on their ground and the depths beneath them, breaking everything that exists down into pieces for its exploitation to keep the promise of infinite growth alive. In Galicia and Northern Portugal, these compulsive desires transform places of biodiversity and ancient cultural traditions into sacrifice zones. In this context, imagining new energy cultures and architectures of collective care is paramount to embracing a different way of being in the world.

  • Guest lecturer : Marina Otero Verzier
  • Venue : luca – Luxembourg Center for Architecture
  • Language : English

This lecture is part of the lecture series “Worlding Soils : Caring for Soil Communities in Minett” organised by the Master in Architecture (Uni.lu) in collaboration with luca.

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Marina Otero Verzier

Architect and researcher, Columbia University GSAPP

Dr Marina Otero Verzier is an architect, researcher, and visiting professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, New York. Since 2023, she has been a member of the Advisory Committee for Architecture and Design at the Reina Sofía National Museum and Art Center.

 

Otero Verzier specializes in the relationships between architecture and digital infrastructures and resources such as lithium that sustain them. In 2022, she received the Harvard Wheelwright Prize for a project on the future of data storage. Between 2020 and 2023, she was the Director of the Master in Social Design at the Design Academy Eindhoven, and from 2015 to 2022, Director of Research at Het Nieuwe Instituut, where she led initiatives focused on labor, extraction, and mental health. Previously, she was Director of Programming for the Global Studio-X Network, Columbia GSAPP.

 

Otero Verzier has curated exhibitions such as 'Compulsive Desires: On the Extraction of Lithium and Rebellious Mountains' at the Municipal Gallery of Porto in 2023, 'Work, Body, Leisure,' the Dutch Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2018, and 'After Belonging,' the Oslo Architecture Triennale in 2016. She has co-edited "Automated Landscapes" (2023), "Lithium: States of Exhaustion" (2021), "A Matter of Data" (2021), "More-than-Human" (2020), "Architecture of Appropriation" (2019), "Work, Body, Leisure" (2018), and "After Belonging" (2016), among others.

 

Otero Verzier studied at TU Delft and ETSA Madrid and Columbia GSAPP. In 2016, she received her Ph.D. from ETSA Madrid.

Marina Otero Verzier © Boudewijn Bollmann