2022.04 Dia-Logue/Dia-Eikon
It is immanent that images are irreducible to words, despite our collective and unceasing attempts to do so. In the same way, the relation between people is irreducible to the words that are exchanged between them. There is some strange alchemy by which we constitute language together and reciprocally language constitutes us. The word “dialogue” comes from the ancient Greek roots of dia- meaning ‘through’ and the suffix -logue, or logos, meaning words or reason, thus dia-logue means “through words/reason”. This exhibition asks if there is another form of relation or language to be found in images, or Eikons -- “like-nesses”. Dia-Eikon proposes an exchange “through like-ness”.
Ours is a world of increasing mediation, with images, especially digital, becoming a ubiquitous component of relationality. Yet this type of relationality (often one-to-many, rather than one-to-one or few-to-few) has seen a correspondent increase in feelings of isolation and alienation.
Dia-Eikon proposes co-opting the form of digital image exchange for a more intimate type of exchange than our digital media systems would sponsor- a form of discourse that eschews the finished and final in favor of the sketchy and discursive. Through this format, autonomous intellectual zones are formed, which can perhaps be the groundwork for truly being together.
The first dialogue
(Dialogue 001: Free-form) was conceived between two individuals in Cambridge, MA and Chur, Switzerland between September, 2019 and December, 2019. It took the form of an unstructured exchange of 146 sketches and culminated in the design and craft of a chess set (Flat Chess).
The subsequent dialogue (Dialogue 002: Chair) followed shortly after between January and May between those same individuals. This dialogue had more structure, being centered around the topic of sitting, and consisted of 227 sketches on the design of a chair. The production of chair maquettes (Maquette Chair) followed in the form of a design charrette.
The third dialogue
(Dialogue 003: Bench), and final to-date, expanded the participants to two in Cambridge, MA and two in Mexico City, Mexico. The topic of the third dialogue was ‘sitting together’ and focused on the design of a bench. This dialogue is on-going, and currently consists of 137 sketches.
The format of the image-based dialogue opens pathways between images and text, allowing the development of a semiotic vocabulary of forms and relations determined through the unfolding of connections between images. This installation invites the audience to join in this process of visual definition and re-definition, suggesting the possibility of responding to the dialogue here presented with sketches of one’s own (Collective Dialogue). But more so, it is to suggest a similar practice for one’s own life.
Adrian Harrison holds a Master in Architecture Degree from Harvard Graduate School of Design. Prioir to that he graduated from Stanford University Civil Engineering with a concentration in Architectural Design and a minor in Computer Science. He has worked at a range of architectural offices in different regions and with different scales including SOM, Atelier Peter Zumthor, and Johnston Marklee. He is interested in the relationship between craft and archtiecture, focusing on the way that experience of material can be heightened through formal defamiliarization.
Hüma Şahin is an architect and urban planner from Istanbul. She received her Master in Architecture Degree from Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she was awarded the Department of Architecture Faculty Design Award. Before that, she received dual Bachelor’s Degrees in Architecture and in Urban and Regional Planning at Istanbul Technical University. For both degrees she received the Faculty Prize for two separate theses. She has worked in different architecture and design offices in Istanbul, San Francisco, Brooklyn and Boston.
Nuria Benítez is a Mexican architect who explores the intersections between design, art, crafts, society, and urban theory in everyday life. She focuses on promoting a collaborative practice, using creative processes of art and design as mediators of architectural and social projects.
She graduated with honors in architecture from UNAM, and completed a Master of Research in Architecture at The Royal College of Art, London, for which she was a fellow of the FONCA-CONACYT program and holder of the 2018 Arquitecto Marcelo Marcelo Zambrano CEMEX Scholarship.
She has worked in institutions such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York and Tatiana Bilbao Estudio. She currently works as an architect and researcher at Estudio Estudio, co-founder of the practice with her sister Inés.
Inés Benítez is a Mexican architect and artist based in Mexico City. Her work examines the intersections between architecture, craft and artistic methods, cultural translations, materiality and nature.
She graduated with honors in architecture from UNAM, and completed a Master in Design Studies in Harvard Graduate School of Design, specifically in “Art, Design, and The Public Domain” (2017-2019), where she also worked as an Irving Innovation Fellow (2019-2020). She has taught at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, and Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. She currently works as an architect and researcher at Estudio Estudio, co-founder of the practice with her sister Nuria.
