Feminist Urbanism: Care and Conflicts
A Conversation between Izaskun Chinchilla and Elke Krasny
Free, until full capacity is reached
How to transform our cities from feminism? Feminist urbanism critically analyses how power dynamics and gender roles influence the design and management of cities and urban spaces — an approach that challenges and transforms the spatial hierarchies which have historically privileged the needs of men and have excluded women and other marginalised groups. This encounter sees theorist and curator Elke Krasny converse with architect Izaskun Chinchilla on feminist ways of reimagining the present and future of the city.
Elke Krasny has developed an interdisciplinary approach which encompasses architecture, urbanism, feminism, curatorial practices and ecology. She studies how feminism can transform urban and architectural spaces, the “ecologies of care”, a term she employs to refer to forms of making the city based on the support of community networks and proximity, and the relationship between social and spatial justice. Izaskun Chinchilla, for her part, has reflected from theory and professional practice on the need to build a more human, inclusive and sustainable city, placing care and well-being at the centre of urban planning. Both authors maintain that any possible future of the city must depend on the feminisation of the design and life in urban space.
Participants
Izaskun Chinchilla (Madrid, 1975) is an architect, researcher and professor of architecture. She is the founder and director of the Izaskun Chinchilla Architects studio, where she explores recyclable materials, organic structures and the integration of nature in built environments. She is a Professor of Architectural Practice at The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, and the CEU San Pablo University (Madrid), and has published the works La ciudad de los cuidados (Catarata, 2020), Cosmowomen: places and constellations (Silvana Editoriale, 2021) and The Caring City: Health, Economy, and Environment (Actar, 2022).
Elke Krasny (Vienna, 1969) is a cultural theorist, curator and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. She has written theoretical contributions on care in the context of cities, art and curatorial practices in different publications, for instance Curating as Caring (Sternberg Press, 2020) and Feminist Futures of Spatial Practice: Materialisms, Activisms, Dialogues, Pedagogies, Projections (AADR – Art Architecture Design Research, 2017). With Angelika Fitz, she also curated the exhibitions Critical Care: Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet (2019) and Hands-On Urbanism 1850–2012. The Right to Green (2012) at Architekturzentrum, Vienna.
