Transparent dream
Anđelka Bnin-Bninski, PhD is an architect engineer, educator and curator with specializations in theory of arts and media and architectural philosophy. She is engaged in multi- and trans-disciplinary design-driven approach and acts on critical strategies and activist tactics of research in architectural practice. She is affiliated with the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Architecture and associated with laboratory Grephau in Paris and the ARENA architectural research network.
“...where I sleep nights in a glass bed, under glass sheets, where who I am will sooner or later appear etched by diamond.” André Breton
Critical approach acts upon poetical and political forces of transparency to challenge its literal and phenomenal potentialities today. Architectural transparency institutes complex, in-depth analysis towards sustainable and environmentally responsible future in dwelling practice. The essence of transparency in architecture is threefold: literal – factual and structural; political – ethically sensitive and instrumental; and poetical – utopian and dreamy.
We have never been transparent. In resonance with Bruno Latour’s concerns about modernity, Transparent dream calls for re-vision of capacity and power embodied in material nature of architectural space. The inquiry is taking the threefold of this material nature (literal, political, poetical) to act upon a habitat overwhelmed with problems of environmental crisis, political hypocrisy, anthropocentrism, massive border walls and masks covering our faces. In a culture of fear, closure and exclusion, this is a dreaming activity that curates the ambition for transparent societal and spatial qualities for a better, shared world, with high sustainable values.
Transparent dream is fueled by a surrealistic impulse, composed by collection of deep insights and sections of overlapping philosophical, artistic, environmental, spatial and engineering explorations. It is multidisciplinary engagement that relates archival knowledge, present efforts and dreams for the future and it acts through drawing, installation, text and talk. Looking at the resource crisis and climate change, this critical action provokes professional ethic and political responsibility. With the furthermost objective in dwelling practice, this experimentation field confronts the question: can we ever be transparent?