Designer and Educator Mira Henry to Present 'Kitchen Table Talk' Lecture Online on Oct. 12

Image courtesy of Mira Henry

Rough Coat, an architectural installation.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Mira Henry will present a virtual lecture at 4 p.m. Monday, Oct. 12, as part of the fall lecture series in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design. Henry is co-principal of the collaborative architectural design practice, Current Interests, which she runs with her design partner Matthew Au. She is also a member of the design faculty at Southern California Institute for Architecture and is currently visiting faculty at Princeton University.

Henry's built work is grounded in notions of material specificity, color relationships, assembly details and an engagement in critical cultural thinking. Her formal research and writing focus on architecture, race and materiality. She is the recipient of the 2019 Architectural League Prize, Henry Adams AIA Award and Archiprix International Gold Medal. Recent publications can be found in the journals Log and Pidgin. She received a Bachelor in Art History from the University of Chicago and a Master of Architecture from the University of California, Los Angeles.

The Fay Jones School's fall lecture series focuses on issues of equity and justice in the built environment. The series is presented in collaboration with Places Journal, an internationally respected online journal of architecture, landscape architecture and urbanism, and the University of Arkansas Office for Diversity and Inclusion. The series is also made possible in part by a gift from Ken and Liz Allen of Fayetteville, part of an overall set of commitments the Allens have made to the school's programs and initiatives in diversity, equity and inclusion.

Registration for the entire lecture series is available on Zoom.

In her lecture, "Kitchen Table Talk," Henry will sit at a table in a small room next to her kitchen as children likely flicker in and out of the green screen background that crudely cuts out her silhouette and edits out her earrings. She'll discuss how the collapse of public and private space, spurred on by our collective self-isolation, is among the many things unfolding at this radically messy moment.

The idea that the intimacy and vulnerability of one's personal life may push into public systems of knowledge recalls a legacy of feminist and subaltern art practices from the 1960s to the 1990s, which claimed emphatically that the personal is political. Henry's lecture will reflect on projects in building, writing and programming developed over the last five years. She will consider the use of the personal and the subjective embedded in each project as a tactical method for interrupting what are often closed systems of formalist thought.

As a counterpoint to more staid ideas of architectural ideation structured by lineage and legacy, her work, and this lecture, will suggest experiments in disrupting the normal vibe through a practice of layering and entangling ideas, beginning from the kitchen table and moving outward.

The school is pursuing continuing education credits for this lecture through the American Institute of Architects and the American Society of Landscape Architects.

This virtual lecture is open to the public. To register for the lecture, complete this form on Zoom.

For more information, contact 479-575-4704 or visit fayjones.uark.edu.