Act as if Our House Is on Fire
Drawing Im/Proper, University of Colorado Denver, 2020
Project Team:
Rania Ghosn + El Hadi Jazairy
Mingyang Xia
Venue:
University of Colorado Denver, College of Architecture and Planning
On view:
March 6–31, 2020
Curators:
Kevin Hirth and Anca Matyiku
“Act as if our house is on fire, because it is,” Greta Thunberg urged world leaders at Davos in January 2019. Echoing the urgency of the #FridaysForFuture protests, Act As if Our House Is on Fire turns that call into a banner for political imagination: an image of visceral disturbance and collective care for a planet in crisis. The project’s conceptual elevation unravels the Blue Marble Circus, drawing the globe out of the Pantheon’s spherical “architecture of the cosmos.” It uses architecture to make the climate emergency visible, while questioning whether the challenge is still to tell its story. The evidence is already clear; what remains is for political and industrial leaders to listen and act. Through fire and smoke, the flag of the House on Fire signals that urgency, calls heavily polluting corporations to account, and demands a drastic reduction in CO₂ emissions.
Click for more information about the Act as if Our House Is on Fire project.