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The Public Program at UTS School of Architecture (Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Interior Architecture) is organised around the theme Solidarity. Solidarity transcends collaboration; it represents a shared commitment to addressing societal and environmental challenges, advocating for inclusivity, embracing diverse narratives, consciously designing support structures, and thoughtfully navigating complex transformations collectively. This call for collective action arises against the backdrop of ongoing spatial, social, and environmental injustices. It encourages us to address architecture’s complicity in settler-colonial violence, dispossession, displacement, oppression, cultural erosion, climate vulnerability, and the perpetuation of unfair practices, including discrimination based on race and gender – issues that have shaken the foundations of our disciplines. Recognising the tension between deep-rooted legacies and the pressing need for action, Solidarity interrogates the social and environmental responsibilities of spatial designers and educators, asking how we practice and for whom, and investigating the formats, methodologies, and subject matter that underpin these practices.
Extending the school’s commitment to examining architecture’s changing social role, especially relative to Climate Adaptation and Mitigation, Inclusivity and Decolonisation, and Equity, Solidarity gathers diverse voices, both established and emerging, to explore shared struggles, from the hyper-local to the planetary, and draws attention to the social and political dimension of our spatial disciplines. We aim to carve out a space to ask uncomfortable questions and engage in vital discussion, in order to shape a more just future. Through a combination of public lectures, collaborative workshops, and teach-ins, Solidarity prompts collective learning and, in some cases, a deliberate unlearning, in pursuit of a transformative, collaborative agenda. Now, more than ever, we need to embrace Solidarity as a way to think, teach, and practice.
Dr Endriana Audisho
