Turner Prize nominees Forensic Architecture (FA), presented their first solo exhibition in Greece, entitled Violence, Fast and Slow at State of Concept Athens, curated by iLiana Fokianaki. The exhibition was an overview of the agency’s varied and interdisciplinary practices. Known in Greece for their investigations of the murders of Pavlos Fyssas and Zak/Zackie Kostopoulos, FA introduced a wide-ranging body of international casework, undertaken since the agency was founded by director Eyal Weizman in 2011. This presentation was focused on a core aspect of Forensic Architecture’s research, which they call "cartographies of violence".
Informed by Harvard professor Rob Nixon and his book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (2011), the projects presented here examine the slow and fast forms of violence that occur in conflict and war zones, but also in democracies worldwide. Violence is customarily conceived as an event or action that is immediate in time, explosive and erupting into instant visibility. ‘Fast violence’ refers to violence that is literal and immediate, which may be manifested through crackdowns on demonstrations, police brutality, the murder and forced disappearance of politicians or activists, border control, etc. It can also include military operations such as those employed during the War on Terror, occupation of land for military bases, and so on. ‘Slow violence’ is, on the other hand, a violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction dispersed across time and space, a violence that is not always understood as violence at all. Climate catastrophe and toxic waste are two aspects of such violence, highly relevant in a world that is slowly realising the grave repercussions of humankind’s interference in environmental processes.
On the top floor of State of Concept's space, FA investigations grounded in the geopolitical specificity of Israel/Palestine brought forward cases that deal with the role of state in the murder of civilians, the use of herbicidal warfare, and the destruction of indigenous cultural heritage. The projects presented on the lower floor of the institution, undertaken in collaboration with Forensic Oceanography, focused on investigations that track the criminalisation of NGOs undertaking search and rescue operations in the central Mediterranean by Italian and Libyan authorities.
‘Violence, Fast and Slow’ was the fifth exhibition under the program "Department of Justice", which began in 2018, and was simultaneously the opening exhibition of a new program entitled "Xen(i)os" that looked into the multiple histories, presents, and futures of the migratory condition in Europe and beyond.
Forensic Architecture (FA) is a multidisciplinary research agency that uses architectural techniques and technologies to investigate cases of state violence and violations of human rights around the world. The group is led by architect Eyal Weizman, and comprises a team of investigators including architects, scholars, artists, filmmakers, lawyers, and scientists, among others. The group uses advanced architectural and media techniques to investigate armed conflicts and environmental destruction, as well as to cross-reference a variety of evidence sources, such as new media, remote sensing, material analysis, and witness testimony. Forensic Architecture is also an academic and an emergent field of practice developed at the Centre for Research Architecture, at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Forensic Oceanography (FO) is a project, established by Lorenzo Pezzani and Charles Heller, that critically investigates the militarized border regime in the Mediterranean Sea, analysing the spatial and aesthetic conditions that have caused over 16,500 registered deaths at the maritime borders of Europe over the last 20 years. Together with a wide network of NGOs, scientists, journalists, and activist groups, FO has produced, since 2011, several maps, videos (e.g. Liquid Traces), visualisations, human rights reports (e.g. the report on the ‘Left-to-Die Boat’ case) and websites (e.g. www.watchthemed.net) that attempt to document the violence perpetrated against migrants at sea and challenge the regime of visibility imposed by surveillance means on this contested area.
OPENING: 27th of September, 8.00pm
ON VIEW: 27th September - 30th November 2019
