Abstract:
At the same time, this embeddedness of welfare in high-consumption domestic life poses a structural challenge in the context of the climate crisis and the Anthropocene. The very spaces that once materialized social progress were always imbedded in the welfare state's massive ecological overshoot, with the political and cultural idea of progress through comfort, domestic freedom and experience of progress apriori tied to intensive resource use. As climate imperatives force a rethinking of consumption and equity, the owner-occupied home stands as both an achievement of the past and a profound obstacle for imagining sustainable forms of welfare in the future

Kort Bio:
My name is Mikkel Bang Maesen, and I’m a PhD student at Aarhus University, Department of History. My project focuses on the intersections of architecture, welfare politics, and material culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. With a particular interest in owner-occupied housing — especially the Danish parcelhus — I explore how the built environment has shaped, and been shaped by, ideas of progress and consumption in everyday life.

Coffee/tea, cake and fruit will be served @ 2pm.