Threads of Culture: A Dialogue on Design, Identity, and Spirituality with Sumayya Vally
Monday, January 15, 2024
9am PST | 12pm EST | 6pm CET
For AFSACK’S 11th Salon Conversation, we are thrilled to present an insightful dialogue featuring the visionary Sumayya Vally.
“Threads of Culture: A Dialogue on Design, Identity, and Spirituality” engages in a profound discussion with the distinguished architect to traverse the interwoven narratives that shape our spaces and souls. Through the lens of Vally’s insights, this thought-provoking conversation transcends conventional boundaries and considers redefining the essence of space and spirituality.
Watch this session on demand as we unravel the intricate connections between cultural threads and architectural narratives, exploring how design weaves together diverse identities and spiritual dimensions in our built environment.
Marking the fifth installment in our architecture series, the event was moderated by Nooshin Esmaeili, Architect & PhD candidate at the University of Calgary.
Honorary Professor of Practice, Sumayya Vally is founder and Principal of Counterspace—an award-winning design, research and pedagogical practice searching for expression for hybrid identities and territory, particularly for African and Islamic conditions—both rooted and diasporic. Her design process is often forensic, and draws on the aural, performance and the overlooked as generative places of history and work.
In 2022, Vally was selected by the World Economic Forum to be one of its Young Global Leaders and as a TIME100 Next list honoree, has been identified as someone who will shape the future of architectural practice and canon. She has joined the World Monuments Fund Board of Directors, and serves on several boards through her interest in dynamic forms of archive, embodied heritage, and supporting new networks of knowledge in the arts.
The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada inducted Sumayya into its 2023 Honorary Fellowship, which recognises individuals that exemplify the tremendous impact that architects have—not only on the built environment, but also on public life and the worldaround them. She was named Emerging Architect of the Year at the 2023 Dezeen Awards, and one of Financial Times Readers’ Women of the Year 2023.
In 2019, Counterspace was invited to design the 20th Serpentine Pavilion in London, making Vally the youngest architect ever to win this internationally renowned commission. With the Serpentine, she has initiated and developed a new fellowship programme, Support Structures for Support Structures, which assists artists and collectives working at the intersection of art, social justice, the archive, and ecology. Vally is the Artistic Director of the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah (January–May 2023), which put forth an entirely new and decolonial definition of islamic art that is resonant with the lived and embodied practices and experiences of the Islamic world.
Her practice operates adjacent to the academy. For six years (2015–2021), she led the masters’ studio, Unit 12, at the Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg—founded by Professor Lesley Lokko, with the intent to create a curriculum for the African continent. She has taught and lectured widely; as Pelli Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Architecture, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; as lead of a new masters’ programme, Hijra, at the Royal College of Art; and as an Honorary Professor of Practice at The Bartlett School of Architecture.
Cover Image Credits: Wave Catcher by Basmah Felemban Courtesy of Diriyah Biennale Foundation
Banner Image Credits: Under the Same Sun by Civil Architecture Courtesy of Diriyah Biennale Foundation
The AFSACK Salon Series is an initiative of the American Friends of Sufi Arts, Culture & Knowledge (AFSACK), as seasonal webinar where recent cultural, artistic, and scholarly works relating to Sufism are discussed. Each hour-long conversation focuses on a theme related to our guests’ recent projects. As a platform for dialogue, the Salon Series seeks to foster interdisciplinary conversations that bridge together broader concepts that are shared across various fields and subjects with Sufism. From art installations, to book talks, to album debuts, the Salon Series is a platform for sharing, dialogue, and access.
