Mabel O. Wilson: Spaces of liberation.

<p>In this episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast, Mabel O. Wilson - architect, historian, and professor at Columbia University, director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies - speaks about <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374620097/thinkingfromblackalexicon/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer"><em>Thinking from Black: A Lexicon</em></a>, published by FSG Editions this September. </p><p><em>Thinking from Black </em>– a product of the Practicing Refusal Collective, a forum of artists and scholars dedicated to initiating dialogues on blackness, anti-black violence and black futurity in the twenty-first century brings<em> </em>together artists, scholars, poets, architects and activists to build a vibrant, experimental vocabulary for black life, culture and collective imagination. </p><p>Through cross-referenced and eclectic entries, the book argues for “thinking from Black” as a creative, plural, and liberatory practice rather than a fixed identity—one that refuses deficit-based frameworks and makes room for contradiction, tension, and possibility. </p><p>Mabel’s work includes books, exhibitions, memorials. You can connect to her via her <a href="https://www.arch.columbia.edu/faculty/34-mabel-o-wilson" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">work</a>, and also <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mabel-wilson-18038038/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">LinkedIn </a>and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/studio_and/?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Instagram</a>. The book is linked above. The Practicing Refusal Collective is <a href="https://www.thesojournerproject.org/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">here</a>.</p><p>+</p><p>Music credits: Bruno Gillick </p><p>Image credits: Image 1: © J. Meejin Yoon: Detail of Memorial to Enslaved Laborers (2020), University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. </p><p>+</p><p>If you want and can, please support the A is for Architecture Podcast on Patreon or Buy Me a Coffee.</p>