about — Will Jennings

I am a London based writer, artist, educator, & curator.

With a longstanding interest in architecture, landscape, place & our relationship to man-affected environments, my various practices relate to these central concerns, and work to explore how they relate to current issues & concerns in a creative & playful way.

I have experiences working in conservation architecture & as a cultural programmer for public events, talks & exhibitions, informing my communication & creative practices. I draw strong interest from historical perspectives, events & architectures, using these to consider both present & future conditions for place and people.

My writing seeks to draw connections inbetween sectors, disciplines & existing discourses, threading between cultural readings of place, object, people & ideas. I also have experiences in editing for academic or general audiences.

My visual art practice slips from photography into site-responsive & installation based projects, through to film projects and art-activism. My work is determinedly mixed-media, with the project idea & research informing the aesthetic & form of the idea.

This feeds into curatorial projects, which is a natural extension of research-based visual and written projects, & offers opportunity to fold together the interests of site-responsive practice, academic research, & visual communication.

All these practices inform educating across BA and MA courses in architecture, photography & fine art schools. This covers thesis tutoring, visiting artist talks, design project lead, & guest lecturer around specific history & theory areas of research.

Aligned to all these is my public speaking & presenting, which includes leading on public talks, as a panellist for debates or discussions, & as a chair for events or Q&As.

Please feel free to contact me to discuss any projects, commissions, collaborations or teaching.

EDUCATION

MRes Architecture (Reading the Neoliberal City), University of East London, 2016-18
MA Photography, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, 2010-11
BA Architecture, University of Greenwich, 1999-2002

SELECTED ACADEMIC

2021-22 - History & Theory tutor, BA1 & BA2 Architecture & Landscape Architecture, University of Greenwich
2021-22 - Dissertation Tutor, BA Architecture, University of Greenwich
2020-22 - Senior Teaching Fellow, Seminar Tutor, MA Landscape Architecture, UCL Bartlett
2020-22 - Senior Teaching Fellow, Thesis Tutor MA, Landscape Architecture, UCL Bartlett
2020 - Guest thesis critic, The Architectural Association
2020 - Guest design critic, The Architectural Association
2020 - Guest design critic, MA Landscape Urbanism, The Architectural Association
2018 - Guest MRes Architecture tutor, University of East London
2018 - Workshop leader, Architectural Model Photography, University of East London
2018 - Visiting tutor, Capital City unit, London College of Communication, UAL
2017 - Workshop leader, The Anthropocene, London College of Communication, UAL

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

The India Club: Space, 2022
Tampere Film Festival, 2022
Architecture Film Festival London, 2021
Fluid Perspectives, Architektūros fondas at SODAS, Vilnius, 2021
AT HOME 20.20, MAXXI National Museum of 21st Century Art, Rome, 2020
Copenhagen Architecture Festival, 2020
The India Club: Matter, London, 2019
Remember, Rebel, Repeat, London, 2018
UEL Architecture Exhibition, London, 2018
The India Club: Friction, London, 2018
Wellbeing and Time, Derby, 2018
UEL Architecture Exhibition, London, 2017
In the Waiting Room, London, 2017
The India Club: Independence, London, 2017
The India Club: Utopia, London, 2016
Filmideo, Index Art Centre, Newark NJ, 2015
FATHOM, Four Corners, London, 2014-15
A Folly For London, London, 2015
The India Club, London, 2015
Bridges, Fold Gallery & Curio Cabal, London, 2012
MAP11, London, 2011
A Place In Time (solo), Brightlingsea, 2011
MAP Interim Exhibition, London, 2011
Circuit Wisely, London, 2010
Artside, Southend-on-Sea, 2010

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Page of Consent, regular column in RIBA Journal, 2021-ongoing
Unreal City, for Canalside Press, forthcoming
Streams of Consciousness, in Building Narratives for Architektūros fondas, 2022
Diary from Kaunas, in Art Monthly, 2022
Culture in Ukraine & Russia, for Architectural Record, 2022
Ela Orleans & Auclair, in The Financial Times, 2022
Super Hospitals, in Re-Think, 2022
GES-2 House of Culture in Moscow, in Architectural Record, 2022
Munch Museum by Estudio Herreros, in Icon, 2021
Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement, on Quietus, 2021
Charlemagne Palestine performance, in The Wire, 2021
AL_A’s Maggies Centre, Southampton, in RIBA Journal, 2021
Momentum Biennial, for Quietus, 2021
Gallery Merz by Snøhetta, for Icon, 2021
Interview with Derek Boshier, in Vingt Sept, forthcoming
Lisbon travel feature, in Vingt Sept, forthcoming
The Oxford Street Mound, in Buiding Design, 2021
MAKE & Architects Declare, in Architects’ Journal, 2021
Tino Sehgal at Blenheim Palace, in RIBA Journal, 2021
Mo-tel house, in RIBA Journal, 2021
Who is London building upwards for?, for Icon, 2021
That’s how the light gets, in Landscape Journal, 2021
A heap of broken computer generated images, in Archifutures 6, 2020
Fragments, a series of seven interviews for Oslo Architecture Triennale, 2020
Justice & Maintenance, in Modernist Magazine, 2020
Balcony rights & wrongs, in Landscape Journal, 2020
Johnson's Bridges to Nowhere: Six Lessons from History, in The Byline Times, 2020
The Humble Cobble, in Landscape Journal, 2020
Phantasmagoria & the Garden Bridge, on Lapsus Lima, 2019
Myth, Mourning & Memory: A Walk Down a Permeable Boundary, in Journal of Civic Architecture, Issue 4, 2019
From Wallsend to Macau, in Tribune, 2019
On Uninstagrammable Architecture, in Dezeen, 2019
Visions from Afar: Jellicoe's Motopia, in Landscape Journal, 2019
Without Instant Action the Architects' Declare Paper Promise is Meaningless, in Architects' Journal, 2019
The Skyscraper Swimming Pool, in The Guardian, 2019
Buster Keaton: Anarchitect, on Lapsus Lima, 2019
The British Landscape Tradition & the Neoliberal City, in Journal of Civic Architecture, Issue 2, 2018
Contributed Chapter Jean Michel Jarman: The Last of Docklands; in Music for Masterplanning, Repeater Books, 2018
London Brick essay, London College of Communication Big City exhibition Catalogue, UAL, 2018
A Folly For London featured in newspapers and magazines across Europe, including The Guardian, Independent, De Architect NL, Dezeen, Apollo & La Repubblica, 2015-2016
Editor & curator, Extending ley lines, 2014
Tumbling blocks written about by Brian Dillon & Louise Clements in Source magazine, 2012
Photography for All That Is Common, 2011
Photographic series in Lund Humphries monograph on artist John McLean, 2010

SELECTED TALKS

Introductory talk, Jonas Mekas, Close Up Cinema, 2022
Walking tour guide, Folkestone Triennial, 2021
Introductory talk, Free Time & the City Symphony, The Barbican, 2021
Talk, Gendered heteronormativity in luxury promos, for Academy of Urbanism 3x3: Romance in the City, 2021
Panelist, Negroni Talks: Artwashing, 2021
Interviewee & panelist, Cressingham Gardens: An English Garden Estate, 20th Century Society, 2021
Lecture, The future of architecture practice today, for BETA bienala Timişoreană de arhitectură, 2020
Interview, In conversation with: Will Jennings, for Oslo Architecture Triennale, 2020
Panelist, The Thames in 2040, for New London Architecture & Southwark Council, 2020
Talk, On balconies, for the Architecture Foundation, 2020
Talk, Between science & superstition, for the Architecture Foundation, 2020
Talk, The new New Zealander, for Future Architecture Platform event at the Museum of Architecture & Design, Ljubljana, 2020
Talk, The Thames Foreshore, for Liminal London conference at Birkbeck School of Arts, 2020
English Landscape and the Neoliberal City, public lecture at the Architectural Association, 2019
Chair of post-film Q&A, New Towns Our Town at The Barbican, 2019
The India Club, presentation for Space and Belonging Symposium, University of the Creative Arts, 2019
Speech, The Garden Bridge, for Extinction Rebellion Waterloo Bridge, 2019
Artist Talk, Site-specificity in a changing city, for The National Trust, 2019
Lecture, Mobilising Social Life: Infrastructures, Discourses, Networks, London College of Communication, 2019
Panellist, Journal of Civic Architecture, The Architectural Association, 2018
Visiting tutor for Ma Interior Design final crits, University of East London, 2018
Panellist, Remember, Rebel, Repeat, INTBAU, 2018
Artist Talk, University of Derby, 2018
Artist talk, Art Salon: Fake, JW3, 2017
Panellist, Artists in Tech Cities, Inside Out Festival, Somerset House, 2017
Workshop leader, How to be an activist, JW3, 2016
Artist Talk, Utopia2016, Somerset House, 2016
Artist Talk, Politics in Art symposium, London College of Communication, UAL, 2016
Artist talk & tutor, University of Bournemouth, 2016
Artist talk, Multistory, Canterbury School of Architecture, 2015
Artist talk, University of Bedford, 2015
Featured artist Q&A, LUX Moving Image Salon, London, 2014
Artist talk, FATHOM Symposium, London, 2014
Artist talk & tutor, Kingston University, 2011

AWARDS & OTHER

Member of the Association of International Art Critics - UK and International chapters.
Director of Hypha Studios, charity putting artists into High Streets
Selected artist for the Architecture Film Summer School, a project of MAXXI museum, Rome, & the Copenhagen Architecture Festival
Fellow of the Future Architecture Platform, 2020
Curator of Liminality, for The Refugee Journalism Project, 2019
Co-curator of Nicole Fahri solo exhibition, 2017
Curator of Moments of Expulsion, solo exhibition of artist Jo Scorah, 2017
Curator of Giant Dolls House Project installation, 2017
Co-curator of Higher View: From Aleppo to Jerusalem, solo exhibition of design Ezri Tarazi, 2017
Participant on LSE Theatrum Mundi's Can we design the conditions for culture round-table series, 2016
Extending ley lines nominated for MACK First Book Award, 2015
FATHOM production residency, Four Corners, London, 2014
Participant, Jumpers (what must I do to be saved) by Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard, 2013
Core participant, These associations by Tino Sehgal, Tate Modern, 2012
Member of Specular Assembly collective
Member of Artists Union England
Trustee of North Southwark Environment Trust