MRes - Visual Cultures

I first learned about the Centre for Research Architecture in April 2014 while delivering a paper on the biopolitics of trans-cultural, trans-temporal temporary autonomous zones of resistance at the 5th annual Latin American and European Meeting on Organization Studies (LAEMOS) in Havana, Cuba. My paper was nominated for best in the Alternative Places and Spaces of Organizing subtheme, and, sensing a connection with my subjects of inquiry, the subtheme convener suggested that I look at the work of Forensic Architecture.

As soon as I returned to the US and to internet access I checked out FA’s website and knew then the path my near future would take. It would be four years before I finally made it to London to join the Centre and the FA stream. In the meanwhile, I co-founded Blights Out, a collective of artists, activists, and architects working to demystify and democratize development in post-Katrina New Orleans in June 2014. In 2015, I traveled to COP 21 to help establish the international Museum Liberation Movement as part of #FossilFreeCulture. I’ve been a core member of Occupy Museums, an artist/activist collective formed in 2011 during Occupy Wall Street to challenge the commodification and financialization of art and culture, since 2011; in 2017, our project, “Debtfair”, was featured in the 2017 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. From 2016-2018, I worked as Director of Programs at Antenna, New Orleans.

In 2018, through the auspices of Antenna, I founded and served as Artistic Director of Fossil Free Fest, a festival of art, food, music, films, and conversations about the ethics and complexities of funding art and education with fossil fuel industry money. I was a board member of Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative, a community land trust that built New Orleans' first permanently affordable housing from 2017-18.'

In the last four years, working both in architecture and sound art, I started to look into international programs that offer an interdisciplinary field of study dealing with broader research. After meeting and discovering that a number of my peers and friends have got their postgraduate and doctoral degrees from Goldsmiths, and based on the reputation of both British Higher Education, and Goldsmiths, I decided to apply. While researching for the right program, I stumbled upon a very particular course that made me more assertive to apply only to Goldsmiths, and this unique program. The MA in Research Architecture was the perfect example of a multidisciplinary course that merges theory with practice, passing along critical thinking and new research methodologies.

After being accepted at Goldsmiths and moving to London, and after the enrolment process occurring slowly, I managed to quickly familiarize myself with the campus environment, and the many events that occurred during welcome week. As a result, I started to cope with the university’s lifestyle by meeting numerous students from different fields and experienced a smooth transition back into an academic environment. This prompted to get more comfortable with the study program and courses, where ideas with fellow students and professors were being exchanged smoothly on one hand. On another level, I got introduced, in the first month of studying here, to a large amount of new academic themes and methodologies. Through a transparent interaction with professors, various and complex topics were discussed and understood through a very horizontal teaching and class management structure. In parallel, I was acquainting myself with the diverse New Cross atmosphere on one hand and London’s vibrant lifestyle on another hand. Due to the nature of my program, I found an abundance of events and public programs that are in line with my course’s topic all throughout London, which made my time here even more interesting.

After graduating, my plan is to transfer both this experience and information that I gathered here to my home country. As a continuation of my personal and collaborative practice with different local institutions, in parallel with teaching at Local universities, I’m hoping to succeed in exchanging the acquired cultural and theoretical ideas with local institutions.

What I enjoyed most about the MA Contemporary Art Theory degree was being able to participate in additional lectures and events outside of classes as well as the public programme planned by the Visual Cultures department. These were a fantastic supplement to my in-class learning as they allowed to me listen to and engage with practitioners and discussions that I would have had a hard time accessing, or maybe even knowing of in the first place, had I not had the supportive structure of the Visual Cultures department.

Coming from the university system in the United States, I was surprised at how independent and personally driven much of the work at Goldsmiths was and how fast the programme went by (I was a full-time student, so I completed the MA in one year). Studying at Goldsmiths grew my critical thinking and writing skills and introduced me to new ways of approaching contemporary art through different areas of theory.

London is the best place in the world to spend your 20s. It is so vibrant and culturally enriching. As an international student, it was amazing to experience the city with people all over the world. South East London has a lot to offer. One of my favourite art institutions, South London Gallery, is walking distance from the campus. Goldsmiths CCA is another favourite of mine.

Prior to Goldsmiths, I studied art history in the United States and my curriculum was very traditional. The Contemporary Art Theory programme at Goldsmiths introduced me to the fields of visual culture and critical theory. I got to read and discuss texts by inspiring theorists and philosophers with my peers and lecturers. The Visual Cultures department has a stellar faculty, it gave me the opportunity to work with leading scholars in academia. The texts you read at Goldsmiths are at times challenging, always create reading groups with your peers. Try to be active in class discussions, they teach you a lot.

I am currently working as a researcher at a virtual reality design agency. In my free time, I attend reading groups organised by the research collective I co-founded at Goldsmiths and write articles for online publications.