WFH Resistance - Geoff Han

In 1967, a group of architecture students and faculty at Yale, Columbia and MIT formed a group named The Architects’ Resistance describing itself as “a communications network, a research group, and an action group concerned about the social responsibility of architects and the framework within which architecture is practiced”. Producing a series of position papers, counter-conferences, petitions, guerrilla actions and protests, TAR’s formulation culminated with an explosion and fire at the Yale Art and Architecture Building. They were protesting the dissolution of Yale’s racially progressive Department of City Planning.

1968 also saw the founding of Black Workshop by Black architecture students at Yale seeking to collaborate on urban design and community advocacy projects in New Haven. With it’s own offices outside of the architecture school but supported by the university, Black Workshop was a self-determined group that operated both external to and alongside the school. These two New Haven student-led groups were part of a larger international phenomenon of revolutionary students, faculty and artists in the 1960s and 70s, including the Situationist International in France, Provo in The Netherlands, The Art Worker’s Coalition in New York, Tolstoy College in Buffalo and The Women’s Graphic Center and Feminist Studio Workshop founded by Sheila Levrant de Brettville, Judy Chicago and Arlene Raven in California.

In the year 2020,the coronavirus has exposed inequitable access to resources including health, housing, employment and education. The pre-pandemic global phenomenon of precarious work has segued into WFH, exposing further class division between those who have and who don’t have access to technology.

For this workshop, your assignment is to research an historic student- or artist-led resistance group and translate your research into a narrative using a medium of your choice. Consider what mediums might be appropriate platforms or frameworks for interventions and actions within the context of WFH and a limited access to resources. The final expression of this project should critically translate your chosen narrative into an engaging visual and experiential work.