Introduction

0:08

so

0:09

i might just start by saying i’m here

0:10

with anna maria leone who’s an

0:12

architecture historian

0:14

and associate professor in the history

0:16

of art at the university of michigan

0:18

welcome anna maria and i’m also here

0:20

with andrew hirscher

0:21

who is an associate professor of

0:23

architecture at the taubman school of

0:24

architecture and urban planning

0:26

and your specialty andrew is on spatial

0:30

politics of violence and human rights

0:32

which i find quite interesting

0:34

um we’re here today to talk about

0:38

michael sorkin’s point number it’s

0:41

actually point number 108 which is the

0:44

architectural impact of colonialism

0:46

on cities of north africa and i thought

0:48

this would be a great opportunity to

0:50

take this

0:52

from north africa and really bring it to

0:53

the continent of north america and talk

0:55

about colonialism

0:56

and its impact on cities in north

0:58

america so we’re doing a little twist on

1:01

his

1:01

on his actual initial point um

1:05

but uh andrew i mentioned that you uh

1:08

had a specialty working in spatial

1:10

politics and i know anna maria

1:12

you’ve explored the discourses of power

1:15

and resistance

1:16

and how publics relate to each other and

1:18

so

1:19

um i’m interested in this relationship

1:22

between

1:23

those discourses in a sense but you both

1:25

had come together in

1:27

the last year’s chicago architecture

1:29

biennial

1:30

on a research installation that was

1:32

called the settler colonial city project

1:34

and i wondered if we could start by just

1:36

um talking briefly about the aim of this

1:38

research collective what were you trying

1:40

to do with this project

1:44

well i guess i i can begin um

What is settler colonialism

1:48

to the extent that settler colonialism

1:52

is uh remembered

1:55

in a settler colonial project like the

1:57

united states it’s typically

1:59

um remembered or registered something in

2:02

the distant past

2:03

something that’s finished something

2:06

that’s

2:06

over something that um maybe has little

2:10

bearing on the present this is this of

2:12

course is the position of settlers

2:14

not the position of uh indigenous people

2:17

um

2:18

and if if you read

2:22

um the theory of settler colonialism

2:26

you you read as in patrick wolf’s words

2:29

settler colonialism is a structure not

2:31

an event it’s something that

2:32

that that that continues to

2:38

form and and and transform uh over

2:42

historical time

2:43

in other words something that’s still

2:44

very much with us and

2:46

one of the i think one of the chief aims

2:48

of the settler colonial city project

2:50

was to begin to look at cities

2:53

in first in the united states

2:58

that exist in this kind of subtler

3:02

colonial present but

3:03

in in ways that are typically um

3:05

redescribed or

3:07

neglected neglected or disavowed at

3:10

least in conventional

3:11

architectural or urban contexts

3:15

and one if we were to dive into one of

3:17

the objects

3:18

um in the installation uh it’s a very

3:21

subtle move but it basically takes the

3:24

placard

3:24

a historical placard on a building and

3:28

uh alters the text in a certain way so

3:31

what is the intent behind this heritage

3:34

sign

3:34

the work of that that project yeah well

Neon sign

3:38

in in the united states as which is a

3:40

settler colonial state

3:43

heritage at least in its institutional

3:45

forms is enmeshed with the subtle or

3:47

colonial project and we wanted

3:50

to somehow foreground that and we found

3:51

a wonderful way to do that in the

3:52

chicago architecture biennial because

3:55

the site of the biennial the chicago

3:56

cultural center is listed

3:58

as a national historic landmark and that

4:01

that listing is marked by

4:03

um these very venerable blas brass

4:06

plaques at the building’s two entrances

4:08

now the land that was seized from

4:10

indigenous people to make

4:12

the site for the chicago cultural center

4:15

is a kind of counter-heritage at least

4:18

in the context of settler colonialism a

4:20

counter heritage that settler

4:21

colonialism

4:22

ignores so we decided to mimic the

4:25

design

4:26

of the national historic landmark

4:28

plaques and make a sign

4:29

that declared that this property has

4:31

been placed on ojibwe

4:33

odawa and potawatomi homelands by the

4:35

settler colonialism of the united states

4:37

and we decided to make a neon sign that

4:41

we could

4:42

display at the entrance of the chicago

4:43

cultural center this turned out to be

4:45

something

4:46

that biennial administration didn’t want

4:48

to include in the exhibition and so it

4:50

ended up

4:51

at the american indian center of chicago

4:54

with whom we collaborated

4:55

in in our work and it’s now found a home

4:57

in the center’s lobby

4:59

um anna marie do you want to maybe

5:00

continue the story from there

5:02

yeah the i mean we they were thrilled

5:06

uh and uh at the american indian center

5:09

and

5:11

uh we we were just very gratified to see

5:15

how folks there have

5:19

appropriated the sign

5:23

extended it um if you see the

5:26

pictures in the site um you can see that

5:30

there

5:30

the the sign is now next to a door and

5:33

folks have started adding

5:34

sort of intertribal affiliation so uh

5:37

other tribal affiliations that perhaps

5:39

are not from

5:40

the area uh but now live in the area

5:43

so in a way the sign is active and

5:46

growing

5:47

um and and we i think it’s the best uh

5:53

ultimately it’s the best um destination

5:55

for the sign itself because it’s still

5:57

there the rest of the installation

5:58

had to be taken down uh but the sign is

6:01

still there

6:02

and it’s been uh you know it’s it’s in a

6:05

way it’s no longer it’s not

6:07

our sign right it’s a community sign uh

6:10

and

6:10

it was fantastic to work with uh heather

6:13

miller and the american

6:14

indian center uh on that project

6:18

yes

Brass seal

6:25

the site of chicago is was the home

6:29

wasn’t is the homelands of the

6:30

anishinaabe people

6:31

but the american indian center um has

6:35

something

6:36

like representatives of 145 different

6:38

tribes

6:40

in its membership and this has to do

6:42

with the the kind of history and

6:43

politics of

6:44

of of relocation in the united states

6:48

and what was particularly moving and

6:51

beautiful

6:52

was how um the the

6:55

the that sign was claimed by

6:58

both anishinaabe nan and shanabe

7:05

i think what’s really interesting about

7:06

this heritage sign is that it’s an

7:08

everyday object that we pass by

7:10

in the city quite often and and so it

7:13

calls attention to that in that way and

7:15

another object that i find really

7:17

interesting that is is a symbol in a

7:19

sense

7:20

is this brass seal in the city of

7:22

chicago’s

7:23

floor the city’s uh seal in the floor

7:26

and i’m curious if you could talk a bit

7:29

about the assumption

7:30

of assumptions of heritage that you are

7:32

recontextualizing with that object with

7:34

the seal itself

7:36

well the first of all that

7:39

co is the only that that cell

7:42

which is also a seal that you see in

7:45

every

7:46

police officer in the city of chicago

7:48

right it’s the seal of the city

7:50

um contains within itself the only

7:53

representation of an indigenous

7:56

person in the whole building um

7:59

in other parts of the building there are

8:02

signs in many different

8:04

languages but there’s no sign in

8:06

anishinaabe there’s no

8:08

indigenous representation other than the

8:10

depiction in that sign

8:11

and there’s a very telling

8:15

transference of violence itself in the

8:18

sign

8:18

because the sign depicts the united

8:21

states as this sort of baby

8:23

floating above the seal of the u.s

8:26

and it’s per the code of the city

8:29

it’s the indigenous man who has who

8:32

holds the bow and arrow

8:33

so holds the weapons right and holds the

8:37

the

8:37

the markers of violence but the sign

8:41

also makes

8:42

clear the narrative of cellular

8:43

colonialism it shows a ship that’s

8:45

headed towards

8:47

a sheaf of wheat which is not an

8:50

indigenous

8:51

crop from the americas right uh it

8:55

replaces the

8:56

chicago which is you know the sort of

8:59

wild onion that the city owes its name

9:02

to uh and the ship is basically a cargo

9:05

ship that’s

9:06

coming to take that crop so it sort of

9:09

reveals the narrative of

9:10

of the city itself and transfers the

9:13

violence

9:15

to the person that’s actually being

9:18

eliminated right uh or the cultural

9:20

group that’s being eliminated

9:22

right and the the you have touched upon

9:24

the two

9:26

points of the building that were of

9:27

great pride um

9:29

the the the the seal itself uh

9:33

the the the folks that the the

9:35

caretakers of the building are very

9:37

attached to the seal

9:39

and they they insist on cleaning it

9:41

several times polishing it and they’re

9:43

sort of rubbing it off

9:44

in a way uh literally rubbing it off um

9:48

so we we felt this was um just the the

9:52

not only in the representation of of the

9:55

seal

9:55

but in the way the seal is sort of cured

9:58

for protected and at the same time

10:00

violently erased and sort of

10:03

there’s a violent ex violence exerted

10:05

upon it with you know

10:06

stepping on it and and polishing rubbing

10:08

it away uh

10:09

it shows that sort of uh civilized

10:13

in quotation mark way in which central

10:15

colonialism sort of

10:19

displaces violence through uh with the

10:22

excuse of civilization this narrative of

10:24

civilization

10:27

yeah i found it very interesting the

10:29

idea of replacing

10:31

the original ramp or onion with wheat

10:34

which is

10:35

a prosperous economically capital

10:38

intensive kind of crop where the onion

10:40

of the ramp is not

10:41

i think they’re very subtle moves in a

10:44

way

10:44

that becomes symbology that really

10:46

changes how we

10:47

interpret history in a sense they are

10:51

subtle moves but they

10:52

point to large capital operations

10:55

right to the elimination of

11:00

cultural groups in order to appropriate

11:02

land and turn it into a site of

11:04

extraction

11:06

yeah there’s another work on the fourth

11:10

floor

11:10

and it’s text on

11:14

some glass windows saying you are

11:16

looking at unseated land

11:18

and you describe in the catalog um

11:21

the the geography of colonial land

11:24

filling and water season and i love

11:25

those phrases water seizing just taking

11:28

it away

11:29

um there’s there’s a u.s supreme court

11:31

decision that kind of lays bare a bit of

11:33

a moral

11:33

gap and i’m curious what’s significant

11:36

about this project

11:37

to you and why light are these

11:39

particular windows why those windows

Imprints

11:42

yeah well the city of chicago occupies

11:44

both indigenous land that was seated by

11:48

coerced treaties and also land that was

11:50

never seated

11:51

we this is a history we discovered in a

11:54

really wonderful book called

11:55

imprints by a potawatomi historian john

11:58

lowe who we

11:58

ended up collaborating with on our

12:00

project and we we wanted to somehow

12:03

visualize this history in our

12:05

intervention at the biennial

12:07

so to make a long story the story that

12:09

john love tells very

12:10

very short when the final treaty of

12:13

chicago was signed in 1833 the shoreline

12:16

of chicago was marked by michigan avenue

12:18

which runs along lake michigan after the

12:20

chicago fire

12:22

rubble from the fire was used to extend

12:24

the city um and make landfill beyond

12:26

michigan

12:27

avenue into what was water when the

12:29

treaty was signed and then

12:30

in the late 1890s um the polka gone

12:34

band of potawatomi who were displaced

12:37

and then ended up coming back and were

12:39

living in

12:39

the southwest part of michigan decided

12:42

to file a lawsuit laying claim

12:44

to this land-filled land because it

12:47

didn’t exist when they signed the treaty

12:49

of chicago

12:50

this case ended up at the u.s supreme

12:52

court the u.s supreme court could not

12:54

find for the potawatomi because that

12:56

would have allowed

12:57

um kind of not only the potawatomi to

13:00

claim

13:01

a large part of downtown chicago but

13:03

would have allowed indigenous tribes

13:04

throughout the united states to claim um

13:07

extremely valuable land

13:08

so the they they they they the supreme

13:11

court

13:12

claimed the potawatomi abandoned land

13:15

that actually didn’t exist when they

13:17

were expelled from what became chicago

13:19

and the chicago cultural center which

13:21

sits on michigan avenue therefore

13:23

occupies seated land but it looks

13:26

out and offers views onto unseated land

13:29

the land that was created by landfill

13:31

and so we designed an installation

13:34

that on on the set of windows that faced

13:37

this unseated land

13:38

to make this usually ignore geography

13:40

very visible and vivid

13:43

i i would just quickly add that we

13:46

sort of co-founded sccp as a research

13:49

collective

13:50

um and we we work

13:54

you know we collaborate with a large

13:56

group of folks with different skills

13:59

um one of those for you know a couple of

14:02

those folks are uh

14:03

emily kutil and tyler schaffman who

14:07

embarked on sort of visualizing um

14:11

much of the research on um land seizing

14:15

and uh the very narrative that john lowe

14:18

um

14:19

has written uh and in

14:22

the making those maps and in the

14:25

conversations that we had with them

14:27

we realized sort of that in sort of

14:30

looking at those maps that there was the

14:32

opportunity to have those

14:34

that we we knew the cultural center had

14:37

windows that looked down to michigan

14:39

avenue

14:40

um so so that’s how we sort of

14:43

started thinking about using the windows

14:46

and then on the other hand

14:48

the design of the installation was done

14:51

by

14:51

annelian craig reshkey a future firm

14:55

who also put us in touch with jeremiah

14:57

chu from summerland

14:59

who helped us sort of finesse the

15:02

details of the

15:03

font and the sort of the the

15:06

installation signs i was interested in

15:10

that

15:10

in the signage and also using the

15:12

windows because these black words are

15:14

the white words

15:15

are very strong on a on a transparent

15:18

surface

15:19

and i’m curious about that idea of

15:21

transparency

15:22

and what that relationship is to

15:26

the kind of history you’re unveiling or

15:28

bringing

15:29

calling forward in a way is there a

15:32

relationship

15:34

i think we the the the the first thought

15:37

was actually

15:38

to have two signs um which were

15:42

you are standing on occupied land and

15:44

the other one

15:45

was you are looking at unseated land so

15:47

so the idea is to sort of

15:49

position you position the observer um

15:54

in relationship to the land and the

15:57

history of that land

15:58

um so after going through

16:02

the building um having a sense of

16:06

until then um visitors have

16:10

read signs um but

16:13

this is on the fourth floor it’s usually

16:15

the last

16:16

um installation that that you would

16:19

encounter

16:21

and and there’s a sense of

16:24

the visitor sort of becoming aware

16:28

of their own role and agency of their

16:31

own body

16:32

as uh in most cases a settler body

16:36

uh looking towards this land and

16:39

understanding

16:40

where they are positioned at their own

16:43

responsibility

16:44

i might also add that all our signs

16:47

uh were transparent they didn’t block

16:51

anything they didn’t replace anything

16:54

um what they did was if you if you took

16:56

the time to read them

16:58

they allowed you to see through them

17:01

and to see uh what you see through them

17:04

in a different way so instead of

17:07

trying to suggest a a

17:11

uh a a a a new narrative

17:15

of the chicago cultural center in the

17:16

city of chicago that would replace the

17:18

old one

17:19

i i i think at least uh the attempt in

17:21

our project was to offer

17:23

an alternative narrative and and and and

17:26

and give

17:27

the visitors to the biennial a choice

17:31

uh or at least a a sense that there are

17:33

competing narratives to understand

17:35

um this very grand monumental building

17:38

and um um and a grand and monumental

17:42

city

17:42

um the the hegemonic given narrative

17:46

and also um

17:49

one that justifies subtler colonialism

17:52

and naturalizes it and one that

17:53

that that looks at subtler colonialism

17:55

more critically

17:57

i yeah just i would just add that

18:01

we we wanted folks to

18:04

see through see the actual materials we

18:07

were speaking about the marble

18:09

the wood the mahogany wood right so

18:12

you’re reading the text and actually

18:14

encountering the material

18:16

object behind that text but at the same

18:19

time

18:20

we there are often

18:23

you will encounter parallel signs with

18:25

the official narrative

18:26

and when those signs were in place we

18:30

with the positioning of the sign and the

18:32

proportions and the size

18:34

we responded and echoed that narrative

18:36

so that the observer

18:38

and the visitors would sort of

18:41

see clearly that they were being offered

18:43

the an official narrative and then there

18:45

was another one that was

18:47

echoing and responding and there are

18:50

many more

18:51

projects we could talk about i mean this

18:53

leads to the library but i’m not going

18:54

to go there right now i do want to ask

18:56

though

18:56

it’s just kind of a last question where

18:59

does this research

19:00

lead next what’s the way forward from

19:02

what you’ve been

19:03

exploring and discovering with this

19:05

research the colonial city project

19:07

and uh where the settler colonial city

19:10

project and where it goes forward from

19:12

here

19:14

what’s next or how does it how does it

19:17

evolve

19:19

well i i would just say that we’re so

19:22

we’re both

19:23

trained as architects and also trained

19:25

as historians and we teach

19:27

and i think we we have discussed

19:31

how this project is a teaching project

19:35

and also a history project but it’s also

19:37

architecture

19:38

so it takes from uh different types of

19:40

um

19:41

disciplinary tentacles

19:45

we were both engaged

19:48

in with different research on central

19:50

colonialism and

19:52

right now we’re co-editing um

19:55

a collection of essays um and at the

19:59

same time we’re

20:00

separately each working on

20:04

just research as historians uh so i’m

20:08

i have some work on the uh disappear or

20:11

the destruction of the big mound of

20:13

saint louis and as a long process of

20:15

central colonialism

20:17

um and andrew i don’t know if you want

20:19

to say something about

20:21

your research and yeah um i’ve been

20:24

working

20:25

um for quite some time in detroit um

20:29

in community-based contexts around

20:32

water justice housing justice and

20:35

related issues

20:36

and one of the

20:40

kind of outcomes of the settler colonial

20:44

city project for me is thinking about

20:45

this

20:46

work in detroit as

20:49

um actually work on a subtler colonial

20:52

city a city that is kind of

20:54

hiding in plain sight because we talk

20:58

about

20:58

its manifestations in very different

21:00

terms in other words i want

21:02

to ask what if terms like gentrification

21:06

terms like spatial racism terms like

21:08

environmental injustice

21:10

are describing situations that have

21:13

emerged from

21:14

an advanced the settler cloning project

21:17

and that’s what i’m

21:18

trying to explore in a new book project

21:22

nice well it’s it’s marvelous work and

21:25

it’s very important work and

21:27

thank you for sharing a little bit about

21:30

the settler colonial city project with

21:32

us today

21:33

andrew herscher and anna maria leon

21:35

thank you

21:37

i was enjoyable to talk with you thank

21:39

you thank you so much for your interest

21:42

thank you

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