Conference Convenors
Professor Teresa Stoppani
Dr Ellie Nixon
Dr George Themistokleous
Gustavo Balbela
TERESA STOPPANI is Professor of Architecture and Director of Architecture and Interior Design at Norwich University of the Arts, and lectures in History and Theory Studies at the Architectural Association School of Architecture. An architect (Italy) and architectural theorist, Teresa is executive editor of the AHRA journal Architecture and Culture, cofounder of the architecture research collective ThisThingCalledTheory, and steering group member of the Architectural Humanities Research Association. Teresa’s research focuses on the relationship between architecture theory and the design process, and on the influence of other spatial and critical practices and of philosophy on the specifically architectural. Her books include Paradigm Islands: Manhattan and Venice (Routledge 2010), Unorthodox Ways to Think the City (Routledge 2019), and the co-edited This Thing Called Theory (Routledge 2016). Her current project ‘Architecture_Dusts’ explores the undoing of form in architecture, studying its materiality (Dust, Atomised) and minor and aberrant practices (lnvisibles, Monsters).
ELLIE NIXON is Programme Director of Film and Performing Arts at Norwich University of the Arts. She is co-founder of La Mancha International Theatre Company (with Rodrigo Malbrán), producing over twenty-five international theatre projects, and of La Mancha International School of Image and Gesture in Santiago, Chile. The school offers professional training in contemporary theatre making, and postgraduate courses in acting, directing, teaching and Theatre in Human Development. Drawing on a range of interdisciplinary perspectives, material engagement theory and environmental humanities, Ellie seeks to articulate the projective interplay between the sensate imagining body and the material world as a dynamic force for creative practice. She is currently completing a monograph titled Imagining Bodies and Performer Training: The Legacy of Jacques Lecoq and Gaston Bachelard, as part of the Perspectives on Performer Training Book Series (Routledge).
GEORGE THEMISTOKLEOUS is an architect, writer and a multidisciplinary theorist, the founder of Para-sight, a design research platform that explores how media affect the spatio-temporality of bodies and identities with-in contested territories. His writing, custom-made devices, and participatory multimedia installations have been presented and exhibited internationally in Future Architecture Platform(2019), Venice Architecture Biennale (2018), ACM Siggraph (2018), Acadia (2016), MAO – Museum of Architecture and Design, Architecture and Culture, Site Magazine, Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice, Cinema&Cie, Journal of Posthuman Studies, Lo Squaderno, Journal of Architecture (forthcoming). He is a co-editor of This Thing Called Theory (Routledge, 2016), and co-convenor of the AHRA 2024 Conference: Body Matters. George teaches design and theory at Norwich University of the Arts, where he leads third year Architecture; he previously taught at Leicester School of Architecture, Leeds School of Architecture, and was a visiting lecturer at CUINDA, Bangkok, and University of the Arts, Helsinki.
GUSTAVO BALBELA is an artist, designer and researcher and works as designer and editor at Austral Edições. He holds a Master in Fine Arts from UFRGS’s Institute of Arts (Porto Alegre, Brazil) and is a PhD researcher at Norwich University of the Arts. Gustavo develops his artistic production through the creation and collection of technical images, presented in installations and publications. His work investigates, from personal perspectives, issues related to globalisation, imperialism and authoritarianism, and has been exhibited in solo shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Rio Grande do Sul (MACRS) Porto Alegre, Brazil (2022), the Pinacoteca Barão de Santo Ângelo, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2022), at Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest, Hungary (2021, 2019) Odesa Photo Days, Odessa, Polonia (2020), UGM Maribor Art Gallery, Maribor, Slovenia (2020), Centro de Fotografía de Montevideo Uruguay (2019).