Together, they will explore Vally’s evolving practice, which sits at the intersection of architecture, art, and cultural narratives, and discuss how built environments can respond to questions of identity, memory, and belonging.
Sumayya Vally (b.1990) is the principal of architecture and research practice firm, Counterspace. Her practice is dedicated to articulating expressions of hybrid identities and spaces, with a particular interest in the complex relationships between territories and places.
Vally is the youngest architect ever commissioned for the Serpentine Pavilion, completed in 2021 and lauded as one of the most radical pavilion designs to shape the commission. She was Artistic Director of the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, which marked a pivotal moment in reimagining the definition of Islamic art. A TIME100 Next list honoree, World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and Dezeen’s Emerging Architect of the Year 2023, Vally has been identified as someone who will shape the future of architectural practice and pedagogy. She is an Honorary Professor of Practice at The Bartlett School of Architecture, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.
Rose Lejeune is currently the Head of Academic and Community Programmes section at Fire Station. Previously, she worked as an independent curator, where over a number of self-initiated and institutional projects, she developed a reputation for curatorial innovation across the art ecosystem.
Her recent work includes Co-Curator for the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, where she led a large-scale live programme, the first of its kind in the country; Founding Director of Performance Exchange, the UK-wide initiative integrating performance into collections by working with both commercial galleries and museums; and Curator of Delfina Foundation’s Collecting as Practice, where she lead a programme of commission and talks interrogating the history of British museum collections alongside contemporary global collecting practices. In 2024, she completed her PhD on the institutionalisation and assetisation of performance art.
*Sumayya Vally’s Portrait Image Credit by Lou Jasmine