NUN/WITCH: States of Exception is the first phase of an online research database that aims to collect and document spaces of the Nun and Witch to reveal their unconventional spaces of female collectivity and social subversion to a wider public.
Within Judeo-Christian western culture and until the hegemonic secularisation of Europe and North America, the Nun and the Witch have been mythologized as oppositional female archetypes, both experiencing a state of exception from society and in space, enforced or desired by the individual.
Following Foucault’s study into architecture as a tool of governance, the enclosed convent formalized institutional religious power by regulating female bodies and enabling systemic persecutions. However, the Nun’s isolation has also produced self-sufficient collectives and access to active social professional roles (educator, caregiver, space planning, etc). Historically, the Witch’s coven is delimited anywhere, in the wild or in the home, through collective rituals. As antidotes to social repression, covens offer insight into models of political and spatial subversion formed over mutual struggle and identity. By exploring the distance between their planned intention and unfolding occupation, we posit both spaces are transformed into sacred spaces of empathy, resilience, co-operation and economic production.
Both stereotypes inherently inhabit an overtly queer space, outside the traditional capitalist reproductive female structure to redefine desire, family and community models. Our investigation looks to broaden the growing discourse surrounding gendered space often focused on domestic architecture to explore an alternative reconsideration of the idea of sanctuary.
Engaging with the popular imaginary of the Nun and the Witch overlayed with plans, texts, film and histories aims to reveal new connections between humanist disciplines (feminist, historical, social) to architecture.
Within Judeo-Christian western culture and until the hegemonic secularisation of Europe and North America, the Nun and the Witch have been mythologized as oppositional female archetypes, both experiencing a state of exception from society and in space, enforced or desired by the individual.
Following Foucault’s study into architecture as a tool of governance, the enclosed convent formalized institutional religious power by regulating female bodies and enabling systemic persecutions. However, the Nun’s isolation has also produced self-sufficient collectives and access to active social professional roles (educator, caregiver, space planning, etc). Historically, the Witch’s coven is delimited anywhere, in the wild or in the home, through collective rituals. As antidotes to social repression, covens offer insight into models of political and spatial subversion formed over mutual struggle and identity. By exploring the distance between their planned intention and unfolding occupation, we posit both spaces are transformed into sacred spaces of empathy, resilience, co-operation and economic production.
Both stereotypes inherently inhabit an overtly queer space, outside the traditional capitalist reproductive female structure to redefine desire, family and community models. Our investigation looks to broaden the growing discourse surrounding gendered space often focused on domestic architecture to explore an alternative reconsideration of the idea of sanctuary.
Engaging with the popular imaginary of the Nun and the Witch overlayed with plans, texts, film and histories aims to reveal new connections between humanist disciplines (feminist, historical, social) to architecture.