Image: Laundromatinee, 2012. Photo by Vivan Babuts. Courtesy of Heidi Duckler Dance.
Please join the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design and the MAK Center for Architecture for Under the Influence 005 at iconic Schindler House designed by R.M. Schindler in 1922.
Under the Influence is a series of conversations that explores the concepts of Los Angeles Modernism. This movement rejected set rules and encouraged experimentation, aiming for creative freedom in all areas of culture. Modernism also sparked an interest in social equality, politics, healthy environments, new materials, and innovation, ushering design into a new and transformative era.
The series brings together architects, artists, and designers from around the world to engage in dialogue with local creatives in LA's quintessential modernist spaces. The goal is to uncover the influence of this radical approach on today's culture and consider the future by bringing diverse voices into experimental and progressive conversations.
Each talk in the series features two speakers - one local and one from elsewhere. Each speaker will present their work, showing how it was influenced by the experimental approach of Los Angeles Modernism. After the presentations, the speakers will have a conversation, prompted by a question that each speaker asks the other. The audience will also be invited to participate in the discussion.
Tickets are $30 for non-members, $15 for LA Forum members, MAK Center members, and students.
Caroline DAHL
Caroline Dahl is an associated professor in landscape architecture at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). At the department of Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management she is responsible for the subject of design of urban landscapes. Trained as an urban designer at BTH in Sweden and as an architect at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles and with a Ph.D. in landscape architecture her research interest deals with transforming urban landscapes and how transformation can be orchestrated through increased awareness to site-specific qualities, temporalities, and entanglement of humans and non-humans. Approaches to research includes transdisciplinary and design research, often explored through interpretative methods of narrative and imaginaries. Caroline has written extensively for professional magazines, and recurrently participates in juries and exhibitions. Prior to joining academia in 2010 as director of a research platform, Caroline held various leading positions at public authorities, and she is regularly invited back to contribute to task forces, feasibility studies etc. In 2023 she was appointed expert in a governmental task force with the commission to develop a new structure for national planning in Sweden. 2016-2023 she was Head of the SLU Think Tank Movium, dedicated to debate and reflections on contemporary urban landscapes. In concurrence with her academic engagement, she runs a research-oriented design practice committed to mediate the intersections and overlaps between architecture and urbanism.
Heidi Duckler is the Founder and Artistic Director of Heidi Duckler Dance in Los Angeles, California and Heidi Duckler Dance/Northwest in Portland, Oregon. Titled the “reigning queen of site-specific performance” by the LA Times, Duckler is a pioneer of place-based contemporary practice. Her methodology emphasizes how dance, born from individual experience, can be a tool for awareness.
Duckler’s 2019 short film “Where We’re Going” was recently selected for the 2023 Aphelion Film Festival, and her 2022 film “The Tender Bondy Sings” was selected for the 2023 IndieFEST Film Awards Festival. In September, Duckler will speak at the Creatives in Conversation Conference held by the American Institute of Architects, Los Angeles chapter. Currently, Duckler is on faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Film and Media Studies Department.
Duckler earned a BS in dance from the University of Oregon and an MA in choreography from UCLA. She also served as a board member of the University of Oregon’s School of Music and Dance Advancement Council. Her awards include the Distinguished Dance Alumna award from the University of Oregon School of Music and Dance; the Dance/USA and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s Engaging Dance Audiences Award; and the National Endowment of the Arts American Masterpiece award.
This program is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture, and by Neutra VDL Studio and Residences.