PREFIGURATIVE POLITICS AND MATERIAL ENGAGEMENT

In both design and prefigurative politics how—the means, or through what processes—we can reach a future point is tantamount with what we want to see at that endpoint. In prefigurative politics, the means (e.g., a protest camp or an occupation) are considered the testbed of the desired future. Similarly, in architecture, the means (e.g., the maquette) is the rehearsal of the desired end (the built form). More often than not, the ends remain unrealizable—leaving the maquette or the event as the only manifestations of the projected future. These instances become, in effect, ends in themselves: the only evidence through which we can understand and assess the political or creative work, the only path to the imaginary that drove them.

What insights and lessons does prefiguration in design hold for the politics of prefiguration? (And what in the designerly prefiguration might be political)? In attempting to explore such questions, Prof. Traganou will dive into a photograph of her twenty-year-old self, that pivots around the maquette of the “Constellation,” a design project she created for an architecture class in her junior year, remembering herself in prefigurative action.

Jilly Traganou is Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at Parsons School of Design and a 2020-21 GIDEST Faculty Fellow. Her work examines questions related to social movements, dissent, and prefigurative politics taking into account processes of material engagement and spatial agency.