Dele Adeyemo, The Cosmogony of (Racial) Capitalism, 2020; (digital version of drawing detail [white ink printed on black acrylic])

A public conversation between Nigerian-British architect, urban theorist, and creative director Dele Adeyemo and Toronto-based journalist and urban planning scholar Nehal El-Hadi. The conversation will explore Adeyemo’s research practice of trans-epistemic mapping and how he’s enacting this at York University’s campus as well as Adeyemo’s and El-Hadi’s shared interests in the body (racialized, gendered), performance, Black geographies, and circulations of sand.

Adeyemo has been commissioned to use his trans-epistemic mapping process to create a digital work of art that focuses on the site of the new Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery (GGYU) on York University’s campus. For Adeyemo, trans-epistemic mapping is a process that is inspired by multiple cartographic methods and builds upon the typical considerations of an architectural site analysis—such as historical factors, topography, zoning, climate, and cultural patterns that are used to understand the context of a location—to work toward alternative modes of mapping that may include embodied experiences of Black life, non-linear conceptions of time, as well as Indigenous subjectivities to convey the entangled nature of differing world views and the spaces and architectures they’ve produced. Adeyemo will use archival images, site documents, and text that register histories of the land and York University and will build upon this material through a short residency in Toronto from September 26 to October 2, 2022. Trans-epistemic Mapping: A conversation between Dele Adeyemo and Nehal El-Hadi will culminate his time in Toronto, as he moves from the research phase toward the production of a digital work of art slated to be presented in spring 2023.

Dele Adeyemo is an England and Nigeria-based architect, urban theorist, creative director, and PhD Candidate at the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London. Adeyemo’s creative practice explores the ways in which historic legacies of slavery and colonialism are embedded in contemporary processes that shape everyday forms of urbanisation. His projects take form through alterative mapping strategies, installations, and interdisciplinary events. His work has been presented internationally at venues such as the Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam (2022), the 5th Istanbul Design Biennial (2021), the Lagos Biennial of Contemporary Art (2019), and the Venice Architecture Biennial (2012).

Nehal El-Hadi is a journalist, researcher, and editor whose work explores the relationships between the body, place, and technology. Nehal is the Science+Technology Editor at The Conversation Canada and Editor-in-Chief of Studio Magazine. She completed a Ph.D. in Planning at the University of Toronto, where she examined the relationships between user-generated content and everyday public urban life. She is in residency at The Theatre Centre, where she is developing a live arts event that examines privacy, consent, and surveillance in public spaces. Currently, Nehal is researching sand as a material through which to understand social, cultural, environmental, and geographical issues.

Programmed by AGYU; Curated by Felicia Mings