Fictive Kinships & Counter Narratives: Whiteness, race, and the space beyond

Jun 17

Jun 17 Fictive Kinships & Counter Narratives: Whiteness, race, and the space beyond

Programmer, Commissioner, Event Producer, Chair

Fictive Kinships & Counter Narratives: Whiteness, race, and the space beyond

Architecture Fringe 2021
17 June 2021
Online

with Liane Bauer and Raina Armstrong for the Architecture Fringe, and provocateurs Amahra Spence, Natasha Ruwona, and Chris Daemmrich

In this work we seek to understand the origins of whiteness but to move towards a space outwith and beyond one defined by race logic - to a place where alternative ways of dreaming, living, and being can be explored with a focus on shared, intersectional goals.

When first developing the work here we wanted to ground this by talking about whiteness, rather than race. In talking about race, this often gives white people the opportunity to step away from the conversation, believing that they themselves are not racist so the conversation cannot have anything to do with them. In initially grounding the work in whiteness, we seek to remove this excuse.

In context to whiteness and race, fictive kinships are perceived social ties that are based solely on the colour of someone’s skin and are therefore considered to be fictional or unreal. An example of this may be where, in relation to class, a fictive kinship is created between a capitalist elite and a working class group of people. In reality, this ‘kinship’ continues to afford all advantage to the capitalist elite with little to no benefit to the working class group of people in terms of solidarity, rights, economic advancement, or wellbeing. Any ‘kinship’ is based on skin colour alone and is therefore fictive.

With counter narratives we seek to move towards more liberated spaces which are not defined or set by predetermined structures or practices. Spaces which enable ideas, dreams and imaginations and are shaped by new stories, social settings, systems of value, and structures of organising.

The explorations and further commissioned work will form a new publication by the Architecture Fringe due in early 2022.

Watch the full online event via the Architecture Fringe YouTube channel here.

Image: Fictive Kinships & Counter Narrative artwork by Dhamintha Wickremasinghe