Lecture
Berenika Boberska | Exploring California's Lithium Valley
Thursday, April 25 6:00-7:30 PM Buy Tickets Free but Reservations Required
This lecture is an expedition into the unexpected landscapes, materials, and imaginaries — the tailings and the tales conjured by our drive towards energy transition.
In her most recent project, Lithium Valley Rituals, Berenika Boberska explores alternate scenarios for future transformations of the Salton Sea area in California, unleashed by the discovery of ‘white gold’ — in what is proclaimed to be one of the world’s largest lithium deposits. The project explores the cultural and spatial potential of by-products, spillages, and spoils: looking at future craft, emergent ornaments, spillage architectures, self-firing kiln structures made of overburden muds, or the almost alchemical color of ceramic glazes that are endemic to the future extraction sites.
The event will take place in the Murphy Auditorium. Doors open at 5:30 pm.
This program is produced as a partnership with SAIC’s School of Architecture, Interior Architecture, & Designed Objects, and is funded in part by the William Bronson and Grayce Slovet Mitchell Visiting Professorship.
About the Speaker:
Berenika Boberska is the Mitchell Visiting Professor at the School of The Art Institute of Chicago - in the Department of Architecture, Historic Preservation and Designed Objects. Prior to the SAIC, she taught at the Woodbury School of Architecture in Los Angeles, where she co-founded the Hinterlands Institute - a series of expeditions, fieldwork-based design studios, and exhibitions that engaged with the space beyond the city. She is also the founder of Feral Office based in Los Angeles - a practice at the intersection of architecture, landscape futurism, and speculative folklore.
Berenika Boberska was born in Poland and grew up in the UK. She received her Master of Architecture from the Bartlett School of Architecture, University of London, and Master of Fine Art from the Royal College of Art in London.
Photograph courtesy of the artist.