Open Call: Caitlin Blanchfield and Farzin Lotfi-Jam

Caitlin Blanchfield and Farzin Lotfi-Jam’s Modern Management Methods examines the United Nations Headquarters through X-rays and the archive. In this installation, documents from the UN archives and X-rays taken in the building create a dialogue about global managerialism and its material effects. Completed in 1952, the United Nations Headquarters is an icon of international style modernist architecture and a symbol of world peace. Focusing on the headquarters’ renovation following 9/11, the project reveals how conversations around security, nationalism, environment, accessibility, and historical value enter the bureaucratic framework of a multibillion-dollar capital construction project. Between information and image, these X-rays look at architecture anew, seeing history as a novel section cut.