“WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”
The power of language is introduced early in Orwell’s 1984, where linguistics and the meaning of words are manipulated by an oppressive dictatorship. Consequently, how the inhabitants of Oceania cognitively interpret and reflect on their world is limited by vocabulary control. Its logic is not unfamiliar, grounded in the theory that language shapes our thoughts and behaviours—a concept referred to as linguistic relativism.
Our foundation at -ism was invoked by an interest in the principal mechanisms of language, namely the written word and speech. Layered upon this is our often cited desire for bold and necessary critical reflection concerning the built environment.
In the two years leading up to this issue being published, and still to this very day, long-standing violence, anguish and prejudice are being further unveiled from hiding in the normalised systems of society. In response, we felt that it was imperative to utilise our role as a publication and reflect on the global, yet personal, pertinent theme of identity.
Through the voices of our contributors, we sought and still seek a possible emergence of an expanded vocabulary, one that would assist in opening ourselves up to truly new perspectives—shedding, but not forgetting, modes of our unconscious biases. As Marina Lathouri concisely states in her introduction to the AA seminar Words and Voices, "writing should shatter common usage and perceptions to bring to light a new language, the un-thought." [2]
Not in shattering, but in dismantling the common, Jac Lyons argues in her reflective article that an acceptance of uncomfortable marginal spaces could allow for the nurturing of diversity and peripheral knowledge in the architectural sphere (p.7).
Our percpetions of home are interrogated in Franek Tyczynski’s creative essay, where, influenced by Bachelard’s Poetics of Space, segments of poetry are curated to evoke individual identity in our collective unconscious (p.15). Unveiling what is often disregarded, Jake Woods communicates in his potent and personal contribution the inherent ignorance of disability design in architecture, calling out for more inclusive and considerate approaches (p.29). In a playful article of prose and photography, the meaning of identity is assessed in Dalia Milián Bernal and Ville-Pekka Säkkinen’s urban experimental explorations, bringing us to question the shaping of the self through experiences of spaces and places (p.73).
Given the non-definitive, yet sensitive nature of this issue’s theme, we have approached curation and editorial roles carefully—questioning what it means to edit another’s text or shape a voice on the page. We aimed to bring together a diversity of perspectives, celebrating the multifaceted interpretations of identity that require urgent consideration in architectural discourse.
Our contributors, both interviewees and authors, are the ones who led this volume, and we cannot thank their bravery, creativity and skill enough.
Aoife B. Nolan