YouTube recording with Jamie van Lede available starting Tuesday, May 4th 2021
Online discussion for students & staff: Tuesday, May 4th 2021 @19:00 (link to VOX Discord server here)

Humans have survived and thrived around the world for tens of thousands of years, using various ingenious technologies suited to their environment. What sort of knowledge is still available to us from traditional design and engineering approaches, different from our own? And (how) can we learn from it and apply it in the West?

TU Delft alumnus Jamie van Lede, founder of Origins Architects, will talk about how he and other engineers have learned to integrate traditional knowledge and wisdom in their Western design and engineering practices. Expect concrete examples from projects around the world and a discussion of the soft skills that you need as a Western (based) engineer or designer in order to properly engage with traditional and indigenous knowledge and beliefs.

(note: this event’s poster references the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Center in New Caledonia, where Italian architect Renzo Piano incorporated traditional building elements from the Kanak culture)

SG presents: the Decolonising Knowledge series

This series of events explores the legacy of colonial power structures in society.  

Decolonisation, roughly put, is a social movement and academic project that seeks to empower knowledge, cultures, and peoples marginalized by the  legacy of colonialism and its power structures. This movement also reflects critically on the historical role of universities and Western knowledge production in relation to colonialism. It encompasses issues of race, gender, land ownership, ways of knowing, reparations, resource extraction, rights and representation, and more.  

The program will consist of a core of lecture series introducing the decolonial perspective and its application. There will also be numerous satellite events with master classes, a film night, and discussion groups. 

The Decolonising Knowledge series will be launched as pre-recorded lectures on YouTube on select Tuesdays in February, March, and May 2021. Live online discussion sessions will be organized on Tuesday evenings via VOX Delft, the open discussion platform of the TU Delft. You can join them for free through the VOX Discord server here. Download the Discord app beforehand (also free) if you want to be able to see other peoples’ video. You can find some tips here to get you started on using Discord.