Book Launch: MAKAN #3: Synthetic Agencies

Join the launch of MAKAN #3: Synthetic Agencies, the third issue of MAKAN Journal of Culture & Space – a trilingual print publication critically engaging with contemporary architectural and urban conditions across the SWANA region and beyond. The evening features a discussion and Q&A with MAKAN’s editor-in-chief Ali T. As’ad, Think Tanger’s publication director Hicham Bouzid and contributors Ola Hassanain, Lada Hršak and Mayada Madbouly.

Building on the foundations of its first two issues, MAKAN #3: Synthetic Agencies invites readers to rethink (and unthink) dominant assumptions, polarities and discontents surrounding the notion of agency. Conventionally defined in western thought as the capacity to act or effect change, agency is deeply entangled with questions of power and the often invisible structures through which power operates.

The essays and projects collected in this issue explore how agency is produced, constrained or distributed through systems of knowledge, design and governance that shape our built environments, technologies, media and cultures. Ultimately, MAKAN #3: Synthetic Agencies understands agency not as a fixed attribute, but as a contested lens through which one might read, reshape and resist the conditions of the present.

Register here.

About Makan

MAKAN Journal of Culture & Space is an independent, trilingual (English, Arabic and French) publication edited and published by Think Tanger, an arts organization based in Tangier, Morocco. The journal brings together diverse authorial voices, visual practices and geo-cultural perspectives, creating a platform for dialogue across languages, disciplines and territories.

Contributors to Synthetic Agencies include: Amine Houari, Driss Ksikes, Fehras Publishing Practices, Hamed Sinno, Helga Tawil-Souri, Lada Hršak, Mayada Madbouly, Myriam Ababsa, Nzinga Biegueng Mboup, Ola Hassanain, Omer Shah, OPPA Research Architecture, Salma Barmani, Samia Henni, Tarek El-Ariss and Zaidoun Hajjar.

This event is in English. Admission is free.

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This event may be photographed and filmed. Kindly let us know in advance if you prefer not to have your picture taken. For seated programmes, places are always made available for wheelchair users. Please speak to the host before the programme begins.

Framer Framed is supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; Municipality of Amsterdam; and VriendenLoterij Fonds.