Joel Letkemann

Recovering Architectural Speculation: Futuring and (Science) Fictioning


Schous Plass 7A, 0552 Oslo

Doors open at 19:30; event starts at 20:00

To book your ticket, please go to Hoopla

Soup will be served.

Always more committed to the world as it could be, rather than the world as it really is, architecture has a long legacy of speculation. More often than not, however, architectural speculation has reserved its energies for aesthetic or technological innovation, rather than a thoughtful reappraisal of its own disciplinarity and its social or ecological commitments. This talk will reflect on architectural speculation from the point of view of recent scholarship in science fiction and global, minoritarian futurisms.

Understanding architecture as a practice in science fiction asks architects to learn from other storytelling traditions to imagine different futures for spatial practice, and also supplies a vocabulary for the discipline to learn from practices which are already in the process of imagining more socially and ecologically attuned futures.

This event is the third iteration of Rehearsing the Not Yet, a collaboration between choreographer Ingri Fiksdal, Marie Nerland’s curatorial project, Volt, and dancer and choreographer Louis Schou-Hansen. Rehearsing the Not Yet looks to explore alternative histories as a means of envisioning and creating room for diverse modes of physical practice by asking: ‘What could have happened?’ Intended to unfold over the course of several years, Rehearsing the Not Yet will comprise various components – including talks, seminars and reading groups – culminating in a performance to be held in public space and/or a gallery space.

Drawing by Joel Letkemann (2020)

Joel Letkemann

Joel P.W. Letkemann is an assistant professor of sustainable architecture at Aalborg University, Denmark. After completing a BA (Hons) in English, he earned an Master’s degree in Architecture from the University of Manitoba, Canada, before gaining his PhD, titled ‘Elaborate Strategies of (In)Direction: Science Fictioning in Architectural Education’, from Aarhus School of Architecture, Denmark. Having previously worked as an architectural designer in Canada, Letkemann has taught since 2014. He currently researches architectural futurity with perspectives supplied from global science fiction, architectural education, architectural theory with a focus on sustainable community, and feminist and queer critical theory. Letkemann is currently an associated researcher with CoFutures at the University of Oslo, Norway.


Thanks to CoFutures and Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay.

Rehearsing the Not Yet receives funding from Arts Council Norway.

Volt´s programme in 2024 has received funding from Arts Council Norway and the City of Bergen.

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