The Imaging Interiors conference is excited to host two keynote speakers who will contribute a rich and diverse dimension to the programme
Hélène Binet is a Swiss-French, internationally acclaimed visual artist and photographer based in London. For more than 35 years, Binet has been photographing both contemporary and historic architecture around the world.
Binet studied photography at the Istituto Europeo di Design in Rome, the city where she spent most of her formative years. Her work has been featured in numerous national and international exhibitions, including solo shows at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2021), and the Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2019). In 2007 she was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. She received the Julius Shulman Institute Excellence in Photography Award in 2015 and was awarded the Ada Louise Huxtable Prize in 2019, recognizing a woman who has made a significant contribution to architecture. Binet is also one of the Royal Photographic Society’s Hundred Heroines.
Binet has published several books and recently completed an overview of her work with Lund Humphries. This year, she is the recipient of the Lucie Award for Achievement in Architecture.
Sophia Psarra is Professor at The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. Her work focuses on the political, cultural, and cognitive aspects of architecture and the relationship between buildings, cultural meaning, and power.
Psarra studied architecture at the Bartlett, and her first book, Architecture and Narrative uses analytical drawings to explore the relationship between spatial order, lived experience, and the imagination. She is co-editor of Parliament Buildings: The Architecture of Politics in Europe (UCL Press). She is the author of The Venice Variations addressing the urban, social and political history of Venice as multi-authored processes of formation, and the editor of The Production Sites of Architecture. Her research has been funded by the NSF (USA), Leverhulme and Onassis Foundation.
Psarra has taught and lectured at the University of Michigan, Columbia University, Syracuse University, Cardiff University, University of Greenwich, University of Kent, Tokyo Denki University, University of Bologna, IUAV Venice and Gratz University of Technology among others. She has collaborated with leading museums and cultural institutions on layout design, exhibition narrative and visitors’ experience. Her design practice has won awards in international competitions and was exhibited in Greece, France, UK, Netherlands, Italy and the Venice Biennale (1991).