Ignored Technology: Reweaving the Fabric of Innovation

Project leader:
Michelle Howard (IKA)

Project team:
Adam Hudec

Duration:
3 Jahre

Funded by:
ERASMUS+ | Cooperation Partnerships KA2
(2025-1-AT01-KA220-HED-000357512)

Erasmus+ | Cooperation Partnership KA2
led by Michelle Howard, Institute for Art and Architecture
Duration: 1.9.2025–31.8.2028

Different items made from textiles and cardboard are placed next to each other and hung on the wall. A pile of books on folded cardboard. On the wall, there is a print titled "women and other anomalies" and a heart-shaped Ukraine sticker.

Funded by an Erasmus+ Partnerships for cooperation over three years, "Ignored Technology" is a collaborative research project led by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (AKBILD) with its partners, the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (UMPRUM) and the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (AFAD).

This project challenges the patriarchal bias that separates "technology" (valued, prestigious) from "craft" (domestic, ignored). We ask: what if the skills historically attributed to women and other marginalized groups had been given the attention they deserve? We intend to uncover a lost narrative of technology together, one where the first tool was a carrier bag, not a weapon, and where collaboration trumped hierarchy. The evidence was always there. It was just ignored.

Housed within the Platform for Construction Materials and Technology (CMT) at AKBILD's Institute for Art and Architecture, the project is led by Michelle Howard and Adam Hudec. The partner teams are led by Klára Peloušková and Veronika Miškovičová at UMPRUM, and Danica Pišteková and Tomáš Toth at AFAD.

This unique partnership brings together three neighbouring European academies where architectural education is uniquely embedded within a fine arts context, fostering a critical and creative approach to technology.