why_matrix

Rather than being organised in the conventional way that would keep control of who Matrix was and what they did, the archive is accessed through multiple connections and formats, and from different points of view. The collected artefacts are understood not as definable things, but rather as moments in the always uneven, long-winded and often contradictory processes of making a building and/or changing attitudes and cultures.

MOfaa asks, for example, does architecture as a discipline value some bodies over others, in its practices and discourses, and how can this be revealed? How can other voices and experiences from outside the academy by heard, and acted on? How have feminist and other radical activities challenged conventional architectural processes and products; and how are they continuing to do so? How might architecture be done differently, with a greater focus on social, material and spatial justice?

MOfaa provides publically accessible and easily available access to resources, for personal and collaborative interaction and re-use. It is being developed in collaboration with some original Matrix founders, and with architectural students and educators internationally, to prototype innovative ways of engaging with primary sources that are not limited by academic notions of what constitutes ‘proper’ scholarship, but are instead open to new ways of learning and doing. This means we are also asking questions about what constitutes an archive, about what artefacts still remain over 30 years later and why; and about what stories get told and what (and who) gets left out.