¿Y después qué?

What next?

2021

Dalia Milián Bernal

About a year ago, I was sitting with three women at a bar in the city center of my home town, Queretaro (Mexico). Four years before our meeting, they had been my students in their first year of architectural education, but I had not seen them for a long time because I moved to Finland in 2017. Now they seemed so grown up, drinking beer, planning their final projects, and telling me all about their amazing topics of interest. 

Throughout the evening, our conversation diverged from one topic to the other, at times becoming profound thoughts about how architecture contributes to unjust processes of urbanization, how little such issues are brought up in architectural education, and the lack of spaces to discuss them in general. We also talked about us, women in architecture, and how our voices are constantly muted – this is particularly true in Mexico, but continues to be a global issue – and what we could do about it without money and being so far apart. 

It was this fruitful discussion that motivated the creation of the blog Interrogativa, a platform that provides a collective space for women to bring-up and discuss issues related to processes of urbanization. Soon after its creation, other women joined the team. The blog kicked off on January 2020 with thought-provoking posts related to women and the city, including contributions of women from Mexico, Finland, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Venezuela, and Italy. In February, the list of contributions grew in a blog-post full of words and the meaning each author attributed to these concepts. I must confess, the February blog-post is my all-time favorite because it crystalized the idea of a collective blog – that month the blog received 10 contributions. 

Then came Covid-19 and a pandemic. Our energy was low, but other women stepped in to write about urban activism , women’s marches in Mexico, thoughts of life in cities post-pandemic, the representation of women in urban art, discussions about racism and colonization of the Americas, women all over the world sent a song to create a playlist about cities in music, and a friend shared a personal experience about the meaning of home in times of Covid. Other women decided to send us an ‘interrogative’ they wanted us to explore, and I was challenged to write a poem about a special place.

So: what next?

Now it is time to reflect on the aims of the blog, what needs to improve, and how to move forward.

One of our main concerns is that the blog is misunderstood as being for women only or that it discriminates based on sex. We want to make something clear, while it is true that we publish the thoughts of women, we hope that everyone, regardless of gender, reads this blog, because we truly believe it broadens the discussions of urban issues. Interrogativa is not to be seen as a gendered space, it is to be understood as a platform where women of all backgrounds can share their thoughts with society at large because we feel such a space was missing. Particularly in Finland, it is hard for my colleagues to understand the need for this space because women and men are thought to be on equal terms. Yet, as I have brought up before, until recently our school of architecture had not a single woman professor, gladly this has changed, now there is ONE (an awesome one by the way).

A big task ahead of us is to continue to work on our aims to make this blog more inclusive, please do share your ideas with us on how to achieve this. In the meanwhile, we decided that in 2021 we will move towards action! We ask: What are women doing to contribute to better and more just cities? The year kicks-off with a text by Anna Kobierska who writes about Urbanismo Feminista*. Stay tuned!

In addition, Interrogativa will become a quarterly blog, publishing posts every three months and the interrogatives will be asked in English only. However, interrogatives may be answered in any language. We will also continue to develop our website, invite women from all over the world to share their thoughts and experiences, and reach out to other groups to join us. If you would like to contribute with an interrogative or to answer one, you may contact us any time.

Last but not least, to all of the women who contributed to this blog in 2020, thank you so much for your inspiring words, links, images, and thoughts, we hope this is only the beginning of a long and adventurous road ahead. My best wishes to all of you for 2021.

*Urbanismo Feminista by Anna Kobierska will be published January 31, 2021.