Reframing Architecture: Piercy&Company Talks Series

This July we launched the guest speaker series Reframing Architecture. Set in our wonderful Camden studio, the series draws upon the connections between different creative disciplines and situates architecture as culture.

For the inaugural event, we focused on photography and invited cultural producer and PhD candidate Matilda Pye and photographer Brendan Barry to introduce and elucidate on Brendan's artistic and community-led projects and their recent work together in New York. 

Through often evocative and powerful imagery of cityscapes, family portraits and still life, they unpacked how Brendan's variety of projects have impacted on his practice as a photographer, teacher and artist. With an emphasis on process and genuine collaborative practice, Brendan's projects surfaced themes common to architecture - how do you bring people along when you are fundamentally shifting and changing a landscape with a new/renewed building? Why is it important to look, to see and to engage in a site, a place and the people occupying or living there? How can we see through the eyes of residents and end-users to help us to improve the way that we design, the choices we make and the materials, interactions and experiences that architecture inherently touches on and even inspires.

So much of Brendan's work and his collaboration with Matty highlights the value in looking, seeing as a provocation and how bringing people together to reveal an image can inspire empathy, awe, connection and joy.

Thanks to both speakers for their time and insights.

Check out these links for more information about Matty and Brendan: 

Public Engagement V&A East
Old Diorama Arts Centre
Positive Light Projects
Vestry House with Studio Weave
Setting the Table, BALTIC