The geography of emptiness
“The condition that the Biennial is addressing—a landscape of desolation and devaluation caused by decades of strategic disinvestment in communities of color—should rightly be declared a national epidemic, a public health crisis. This is not a geographic crisis merely because of its ubiquity; it is a moral crisis because we’ve come to treat it with a shrugging cynicism.”
Newcity magazine, October 2021, dedicated to the Chicago Architecture Biennial
I was honored to serve as the guest editor of Newcity’s October 2021 issue, dedicated to the Chicago Architecture Biennial. Along with co-editor Kekeli Sumah, we invited contributions from writers, designers, architects, artists, and photographers who reflected on the past and future of Chicago’s vacant lots.
The issue reads like a series of dialogues and debates: it is at once collegial and provocative. In the same discursive mode, Sumah and I introduced the issue with a wide-ranging conversation on our shared immigrant experience and divergent perspectives.