Borders permeate the urban and rural condition(s) of the North and South of Ireland. Walls, fences and barricades divide neighbourhoods in Belfast and Derry, materialising centuries of sectarian division. The line demarcating the region of Northern Ireland is subject to checkpoints and bureaucratic post-Brexit processes, resuscitating a previously invisibilised borderland. Then there are the quieter, less overt forms of bordering that mediate the social, political and cultural context of the island, such as the lines that separate across race, class and gender.
Interface Architectures is a research project examining these urban and rural bordered condition(s) in the North and South of Ireland. We seek to develop new models for engaging with contested space through multidisciplinary research: curating public programmes, editing publications and co-producing design interventions. Central to the project is a drive to place this bordered context transversally, specifically within too-often-overlooked histories such as the enmeshment of the urban within three centuries of British colonial violence, ensuing unstable land tenure, and ongoing ecological dilapidation.
The project is in solidarity with ‘No Borders’ and anti-imperialist movements. We hope that our multidisciplinary research will contribute to a broader network of practitioners agitating to abolish forms of bordering – from the territorial to the class-based – that exist far beyond the boundaries of the island of Ireland.
interface architectures is a research project examining the bordered urban and rural condition(s) of the North and South of Ireland
maria mclintock
I am an architecture and design curator, writer and educator, with research interests in history and critical theory, spanning feminist, post-/de-colonial and ecological, borders, migration, politics and post-conflict cities. I am a Curator at the Design Museum, London, and have formerly worked in a curatorial capacity in the Architecture and Design Department at The Museum of Modern Art, NYC, and Ikon Gallery, Birmingham. Having grown up on the border of Northern Ireland, I am interested in the cultural and political processes of bordering through critical spatial practice. I produce research on the post-conflict urban landscapes of Belfast and Derry, and co-run a research project, System of Systems, that examines the spatial, bureaucratic and technological migration landscapes in and beyond Europe. I have taught architecture and design history and theory at the Central Saint Martins, Birmingham City University and the University of Limerick. I write on the intersection of urban contexts and politics for publications such as Architectural Review, Failed Architecture and e-flux architecture.
I am a transdisciplinary designer and strategist specialising in critical, regenerative, and more-than-human design and world-building as well as; a researcher and educator, with research interests in history, critical theory, and futures philosophies, spanning de-colonial, ecological, intersectional, solidarity, and alternative economies, politics and systems. Being Northern Irish my work often focuses on themes of space, power, and conflict, exploring how various design methodologies and philosophies can interrogate our relationship with these. I predominantly work on Climate Action projects within Ireland using design to transition to regenerative and just futures. I am a Researcher, Co-ordinator, and Design Strategist at Hybrid Futures Lab, a trans-disciplinary research initiative at the intersection of philosophy, technology, and design. I teach product and industrial design practice, history, and theory at Central Saint Martins. My business hag is a reclaiming of folk magic and nature-based practices celebrating the role of the witch as a feminist symbol. I am an awardee of the Unilever SUSTAIN-ability Award (2017) for my project mCycle, and my work has been exhibited in the Victoria & Albert Museum, New York Design Week, and London Design Festival.