Joana Rafael is an architect practitioner and Postdoctoral Researcher, specializing in ecological concerns related to pollution and contamination, both indoors and in urban planning. Her research explores the intersections of architecture and urbanism with human geography, environmental studies, and power dynamics, encompassing contemporary culture, media studies, art, and technology. She investigates the materiality and limits of physical infrastructures in relation to Earth's systems and the reciprocal relationships between humans and nature, with a particular focus on radiologically contaminated environments. Joana has taught Contextual Studies and Contemporary Culture-related courses at institutions including ESAP in Porto, ISCE Douro in Penafiel, Central Saint Martins in London, and the University for the Creative Arts in Canterbury. She is a member of CEGOT (Center for Studies in Geography and Spatial Planning) and CEAA (Centro de Estudos Arnaldo Araújo), and a co-founder of REFINERY BOARD. Joana holds a Master of Architecture and Urban Cultures from Metropolis, Barcelona, as well as a Master of Research Architecture and a PhD in Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths, University of London. She also earned a Healthier Materials and Sustainable Building Specialization certificate from Parsons School of Design, The New School. In addition to her academic pursuits, Joana is a certified farmer.
Who's the Savage in our Reservations?
Presented in / Published in portuguese as Quem é o Selvagem das nossas Reservas?
in 18ART
Who is the Savage in our Reservations problematizes the recasting of Nature in Zoned Spaces for Conservation. In recent years, conceptions of nature as a realm apart from, and subservient to the human, is growingly being challenged in prol of a recognition of an egalitarian and inextricably intertwined way with the human (sic) being-in-the world. An international grouping of artists and activists, in their various practices and conceptual engagements, participated in this transformation. Mirroring recent philosophical developments (such as new materialism, speculative realism, object-oriented ontology and new waves of eco-feminism) these have helped to rethink humanity's relation to nature and the environment, and to resit the legacy of old instrumental attitudes towards - and ideas of - nature, as well as the arrangements of reservation for its conservation. This paper portrays how this transformation has challenged the metaphysical division harming, negatively and violently, in the Amazonian forest and the planetary environment.