Offshoring Architecture: Asylum's Counter Archives

History on Wednesday | March 25

Offshoring Architecture: Asylum's Counter Archives. 

A History on Wednesday/Powerful Stories Network co-sponsored event.

Associate Professor Jennifer Ferng (Sydney) 

12.10pm - 1.30pm | VGCC Boardroom (and Zoom)

Based upon her recent book Corporate Ethics and the Architecture of Asylum (2025), this talk by Jennifer Ferng argues that offshore processing centres in Manus Island and Nauru are deeply connected to historical and contemporary discourses around environmental precarity, human rights, and sovereignty. Such centres positioned between architecture and law propose challenging entanglements making it difficult to enforce any form of accountability. From Rembrandt’s De Nachtwacht (1642) to recent advancements in artificial intelligence and legal testimonies, picturing the future of asylum serves as a critical tool to resist state authoritarianism and the rise of corporate malfeasance in the built environment.

About the speaker:

Jennifer Ferng is Associate Professor in Architecture. She directs the B.Des.Arch (honours) M.Arch program at the University of Sydney. Her recent book Corporate Ethics and the Architecture of Asylum (Routledge, 2025) focuses on how multinational contractors exercise coercion and control over the lives of asylum seekers through the Pacific built environment.

Venue & Zoom information

• Zoom link here. Password: 655732

• Venue: VGCC Boardroom, level 4, Madsen Building.

  
  

Contact:

Please contact Niro Kandasamy or James Findlay for more information:

niro.kandasamy@sydney.edu.au or james.findlay@sydney.edu.au

Seminar image: Unsplash