Alexandra Stara | Kingston University, London (original) (raw)

Uploads

Papers by Alexandra Stara

This paper discusses the corporate city and the way it structures the experience of its inhabitan... more This paper discusses the corporate city and the way it structures the experience of its inhabitants. The corporate city is seen here as the embodiment of power relationships of a distinctly postmodern nature, a means to preserve and promote hegemonic and homogenising discourses like globalisation and consumerism. Corporate design and architecture embody specific kinds of relationships, experiences and perceptions of space and place. We will suggest that the corporate city is homogenised, lacking richness of civic space, not just in terms of form but in terms of structures (both, spatial structures and the kind of social structures/interactions they invite). The activities of a group of traceurs practicing parkour are described and their philosophy is explained as a metaphor for active participation and dialectic relationship between the actual and the possible structures of the world. Richness of experience, strengthening of community, variety of activity, openness and possibility are irrelevant (actually, inimical) to the corporate forces that shape our cities today. However, as the experience of parkour demonstrates, extreme artforms of 'urban activism' but also, more importantly, human agency and the performativity of the everyday, are capable of transforming the otherwise alienating non-places, to grounds of possibility, creativity and civic identity.

Essay in Skiascope, the annual publication of the Gothenburg Museum of Art, edited by Kristoffer ... more Essay in Skiascope, the annual publication of the Gothenburg Museum of Art, edited by Kristoffer Arvidsson. Issue 7 is dedicated to Art Museum Architecture.

A short essay for the catalogue of photography exhibition Staging Disorder, curated by Esther Tei... more A short essay for the catalogue of photography exhibition Staging Disorder, curated by Esther Teichmann and Christopher Stewart, LCC 2015, featuring work by artists Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Geissler/Sann, Claudio Hils, An-My Le, Richard Mosse, Sarah Pickering and Christopher Stewart.

Stara explores the work of contemporary artist Ori Gersht, who uses concealment and ellipsis as d... more Stara explores the work of contemporary artist Ori Gersht, who uses concealment and ellipsis as devices for the exploration of trauma and the (im)possibility of its communication.

This paper discusses the work of the contemporary German-born artists Steffi Klenz and Thomas Wei... more This paper discusses the work of the contemporary German-born artists Steffi Klenz and Thomas Weinberger, who share an interest in ‘making strange’ as a device for bringing to visibility the processes that shape our environment. Klenz and Weinberger belong to a generation of young photographers who, across a consider- able variety of subject matter and technique, have been challenging the categories of ‘urban’ and ‘landscape’; they have also been investing in processes of ambiguation through their work, offering an open space for the viewer’s own projection and engagement. Quite distinct in focus and technique, Klenz and Weinberger turn away from urban life as action in order to meditate on the spaces where it unfolds. Their work shows complex modes of construction, appropriation and destruction of contemporary urban landscapes and their representations. The work of the two artists is discussed alongside ideas of the homely and the strange as devices of re- cognition, and is situated in the context of contemporary photographic practice that rethinks ways in which we look at our environment. Published in History of Photography, 37: 3, 2013, pp. 353-359

Paper delivered at the 33rd Congress of the International Committee of the History of Art (CIHA),... more Paper delivered at the 33rd Congress of the International Committee of the History of Art (CIHA), at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, Germany, 2012. Published in the conference proceedings.

A journey to London's edge, inspired by a photograph by Steffi Klenz. Published in London Indepen... more A journey to London's edge, inspired by a photograph by Steffi Klenz. Published in London Independent Photography, Issue on Journeys, no. 12, Spring 2009, pp. 24-25

Alexandra Stara, Director of Graduate History and Theory in the School of Architecture and Landsc... more Alexandra Stara, Director of Graduate History and Theory in the School of Architecture and Landscape at Kingston University, turns her critical eye to the phenomena of iconic buildings and finds a lack of dimension. Published in Kiosk, the annual magazine of the Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture, Kingston University, 2008

Books by Alexandra Stara

This book features thirteen essays by the late architect, philosopher and teacher Dalibor Vesely ... more This book features thirteen essays by the late architect, philosopher and teacher Dalibor Vesely (1934–2015). Vesely was a leading authority on philosophical hermeneutics and phenomenology in relation to architecture worldwide, and influenced a generation of thinkers, teachers and practitioners. This collection presents the full range of his writing, drawing primarily from the history of art and architecture, as well as philosophy, theology, anthropology and ecology, and spanning from early antiquity to modernism. It composes a multifaceted and globally relevant argument about the enduring cultural role of architecture and the significance of its history. The book, edited and introduced by Vesely’s teaching partner at Cambridge Peter Carl and former student Alexandra Stara, and with a foreword by David Leatherbarrow, brings to light new and hard-to-access material for those familiar with Vesely’s thought and, at the same time, offers a compelling introduction to his writing and its profound relevance for architecture and culture today.

Co-edited with Tamás Bényei. A collection of essays by an international group of scholars, The Ed... more Co-edited with Tamás Bényei. A collection of essays by an international group of scholars, The Edges of Trauma: Explorations in Visual Art and Literature addresses the vast cultural and discursive construction that trauma has become in recent decades. Unravelling aspects of representing, narrating, testifying to trauma and of sharing or conveying traumatic non-experience, many of the essays offer new perspectives on traditionally central topics of trauma studies.

Co-edited with Sarah Chaplin. Addressing the collection, representation and exhibition of archite... more Co-edited with Sarah Chaplin. Addressing the collection, representation and exhibition of architecture and the built environment, this book explores current practices, historical precedents, theoretical issues and future possibilities arising from the meeting of a curatorial ‘subject’ and an architectural ‘object’.

Striking a balance between theoretical investigations and case studies, the chapters cover a broad methodological as well as thematic range. Examining the influential role of architectural exhibitions, the contributors also look at curatorship as an emerging attitude towards the investigation and interpretation of the city. International in scope, this collection investigates curation, architecture and the city across the world, opening up new possibilities for exploring the urban fabric.