School's Out! #52 with Kenny Cupers

School's Out! #52 - Kenny Cupers

Every last Friday of the month the Independent School for the City celebrates the start of the weekend with a public lecture. For this evening we've invited Kenny Cupers, Professor of Architectural History and Urban Studies at the University of Basel, where he co-founded and leads the Urban Studies division since 2015. Trained as an architect, urbanist, and historian, he works on the relationship between built environments and social change in African and European contexts. 

Kenny Cupers will talk about his historical and collaborative research in Kenya, exploring the planetary politics of design, the coloniality of infrastructure, and African worldmaking.

Programme

18:00 Doors open, drinks bites and tunes

19:00 - 20:15 Presentation by Kenny Cupers + Q&A

20:15 - 20:30 Short film

20:30 - 22:00 Drinks and tunes

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About Kenny Cupers
Kenny Cupers is Professor of Architectural History and Urban Studies at the University of Basel, where he co-founded and leads the Urban Studies division. Trained as an architect, urbanist, and historian, his research and teaching focus on the relationship between built environments and changing societies in African and European contexts.

He is currently working on two book projects, grounded in historical and collaborative research in Kenya. The first examines how workers and peasants mobilized arts and architecture to unmake the plantation system. It draws on a collaboratively produced archive with Kenyan theatre performers, activists, and literary scholar Dr. Makau Kitata (kamiriithuafterlives.net). The second project, with art historian Dr. Prita Meier, is an urban history of post-independence Nairobi that maps the ambiguous lives of liberation and consumption.