HIAA Professor Itohan Osayimwese recently delivered one of the keynote addresses during the European Architectural History Network 9th Biennial Conference in Aarhus, Denmark. Her address, titled On Writing Archival and Material Absences in Architectural History considered how architectural historians can approach their work when archives and material traces of the built environment are absent or hidden. Taking case studies from a field that contends regularly with this problem -- Africanist architectural history – she explored speculative history and critical fabulation as pathways for writing “otherwise-possible” histories not only when conventional methods fail, but also as an intentional alternative to the linear, univocal, synthesizing narratives that are taken as the norm.
History of Art and Architecture
Date
June 24, 2026