Alison Bartlett
Alison, please introduce yourself:
I am an architectural researcher, designer and writer. I am interested in the political and aesthetic operativity of historical objects. As an associate lecturer at the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins, I am investigating artefacts that explore the tolerance for cultural adaptation within the framework of nationalist identities.
Photo: © Genevieve Lutkin
#1 How did you come to study architecture?
Architecture never presented itself as a vocation. It remained abstract and romantic; belonging to other places and histories than the small Canadian city I grew up in. At the same time, I’ve always understood the world in spatial terms and as a child, I was obsessed with altering perceptions of space. My imagination was always reconfiguring surfaces and objects within buildings. It was during my undergraduate studies in commerce that these ingrained values came into a stark tension with my environment and presented a kind of clarity I had never had before. Three weeks after graduating from my commerce degree, I moved to the US and started architecture school.
#2 Your time at Tezontle Studio in Mexico City had big impact on you and influenced how you approached your dissertation. How did that come about?
Before moving to Mexico City, I was working in New York and on the verge of quitting architecture altogether. I had very quickly become disillusioned by the industry’s vulnerability to private investors and developers. I needed to understand another way of practicing architecture. One afternoon I was sitting with a friend at the Wythe Hotel bar in Brooklyn plotting potential options. He couldn’t stop talking about this firm ‘Tezontle Studio’ he had just interviewed for ‘Pin-Up’ magazine. It was 2018 and I had become completely enthralled by the architecture, design and art practices in Mexico City. He put me in touch with the studio and over the course of that year we started an email chain that eventually led to a position. I ended up staying two years.
Photo: © Genevieve Lutkin
#3 Can you tell us a bit more about the subject of your dissertation at the AA and how you approached the topic?
‘Resonate Beasts’ is a cross-examination into the production of nationalist identities entombed within architectural markings. It is interested in the historical and material symbolic orders in Quebec, Canada that have constructed hegemonic cultural values produced via political agendas. Of course, the colonial paradox of dealing with this subject in a design context is the inevitable pitfall of “re-plaquefication”– asserting one set of values over another, ad nauseam. This is where I became interested in using casting as a process of re-reading the symbolic order into new appropriations. These re-readings of the wayside cross, the seigneurial grid and the French-Canadian farmhouse sought to challenge the esteemed creed, Pays-Paysages-Paysans, of which the nationalist party uses as leverage in the construction of the French-Canadian identity.
#4 You are an associate lecturer within the architecture departments at the Royal College of Arts and at Central Saint Martins. What is particularly important to you in teaching and what do you try to convey to your students?
One of the most important things I try to instill, is to engage with a sense of unknowing. We have become so accustomed to seeing finalized outcomes as a summation of method. This completely short-circuits the messy and overwhelming nature of process, rendering it into a productive utilitarian pursuit. In a way, we’ve lost our sense of curiosity; of following a thread of archival drawings or documents for a reason that is not yet known. I encourage this sense inquisitiveness as a way of finding trust within the research process.
Photo: © Genevieve Lutkin
#5 During your time as a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome this past spring, you studied the city’s 13 obelisks and Pope Sixtus V’s use of them in reshaping the urban plan. What were the most intriguing aspects of your study?
It’s a funny phenomenon that the closer you get to something, the more difficult it becomes to understanding. This was the case with the 13 obelisks in Rome. I had started studying them from London about two years ago. I was using an odd combination of archival materials and tourist blogs in attempt to draw a comparative study between the original Egyptian obelisks and the slew of Roman appropriations that ensued since Augustus’ first series of “acquisitions” in 28 BCE. The purpose of being in Rome was to resolve questionable dimensions and details, however, I found it to be an almost impossible endeavor. Aside from the immense crowds of summer tourists, their scale is truly monumental and difficult to fully capture. It forced me to consider another approach that embraces their undocumentability and fragmented histories. They are obscure objects that continue to reveal intriguing aspects.
#6 Your work explores the political operativity of architectural artefacts, or what you describe as "aesthetic carriers." Could you elaborate on how mythmaking, nostalgia, and romanticization contribute to the power these artefacts hold?
Architectural artefacts within our physical environment inform the perceiver with the logic of power structures; those that are represented and those that are Other than. This is what Jacques Rancière calls the Distribution of the Sensible. I am interested in how the process of romanticization and nationalist agendas are intertwined. Romanticization can be understood as the rejection of new and foreign particularities in attempt to reduce the gap between the “original” identity of the nation from the reality of the present. It is reliant upon mythmaking as a semiotic form of communication, where the sign is the associative totality of the signifier and the signified. Under the hypnotic power of myth, the sign is dislocated from its original symbolic order and proceeds to endure a series of mutations that deny historical continuity and favour the newly constructed associative meaning. They become symbols of a romanticized past, indulgent for a nostalgic ideal that can never be returned to and inevitably, lead to failure.
#7 How do you see the role of an architect in today's society?
The role of the architect is continually being re-defined and fractured into many versions and ideations of itself. On various levels we have entered a post-building era, where the architect’s focus has shifted from solely making new to a reflection on the existing. This interests me, not only in a materialist sense, but in the preservation of intangible forces; in a topography of histories and narratives within our collective unconscious.
Photo: © Alison Bartlett
#8 How does your environment influence your work?
I think sometimes we give our environment too much agency in dictating our ability to work. It has become this aestheticized ideal in which the image of work usurps the very nature of working. I can’t work in objectively beautiful places. Rather, I like an environment that is homogenous, that mutes any form of transition in light, sound, colour or movement. It almost becomes an act in trying to elongate one moment of focus throughout an entire day. This was challenged quite a bit throughout the pandemic years. I was living and working intermittently between Canada, Mexico, Germany and France. My laptop, notebook, agenda, a handful of canary yellow looseleaf A4s and my stationary box became objects that transposed any environment into a place of familiarity and routine. I found this to be a useful practice in returning one’s sense of agency to their mindset, rather than depending on the environment we find ourselves in.
#9 Three things that inspire you at the moment?
+ The sculptures of Thomas Hutton
+ The film sets of Aki Kaurismäki
+ The writings of Annie Ernaux
#10 What do you currently read, watch, listen to?
I often read, watch and listen to things repetitively, with some supplementary content.
+ Reading, ‘The Social Life of Things–Commodities in Cultural Perspective” edited by Arjun Appadurai // Re-reading, ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” by Ocean Vuong
+ Watching, “We Go Round in the Night and are Consumed by Fire” by Guy Debord // Re-watching (perhaps forever), “The Office” (the American series)
+ Listening, Kim Jung Mi’s album ‘NOW’ // Re-listening, the archive of Marc Cousin lectures
Photo: © Alison Bartlett
Links
Instagram : @izconstance | website: www.alison-bartlett.info
Photo Credits: © Alison Bartlett, © Genevieve Lutkin, Interview Caroline Steffen