The LSU School of Architecture will host the Bordering On Symposium on Saturday, February 23, 2019 at the Manship Theater, Shaw Center for the Arts in Baton Rouge. The symposium, which brings together international scholars, is free and open to the public.

Organized by architecture assistant professors Kris Palagi and Angeliki Sioli, the symposium features speakers with expertise in the areas of architecture, urbanism, political science, design, landscape architecture, art, geography, sociology, anthropology, law, and more. The keynote speaker is UC San Diego Professor Fonna Forman, the 2019 Nadine Carter Russell Chair of the LSU College of Art & Design.

“Borders can be tangible, solid, concrete, palpable, impenetrable, aggressive,” the organizers stated. “They can be implicit, abstract, undetectable, tacit, porous and soft. Spatial borders – visible or invisible – define our encounter with the world around us, from the small scale of the neighborhood to that of the nation. They define our engagement with the public shared place of human interaction, and shape our social, political, ethical and personal stand as architects and world citizens.”

“This event is an excellent opportunity to bring international scholars to Baton Rouge to exchange ideas,” said Alkis Tsolakis, Dean of the College of Art & Design. “It’s a truly interdisciplinary conversation.”

“The symposium opens the conversation on what exists ‘past the buttressed, scavenged and policed’ understanding of borders in a local, national and international scale and aspires to look into borders as the possibility for a meaningful adjacency and spatial interexchange,” Sioli said.

Professor Forman is conducting a workshop with architecture students in tandem with the symposium, exploring borders within the framework of an investigative case study. Architecture students will explore communities in Baton Rouge to better understand the complex issues that border zones face.

Symposium Program