On Fragile Nationality

A Mini Manifesto

A nation is a cultural community. Each is based on an ideology—a language, a faith, a history, or even a food—and those who subscribe to it are by definition nationals. We form these groups to comfort ourselves with the knowledge that there are others who see the world the way we do—that we are not alone—then we disseminate that understanding for further corroboration: recruiting new members and revelling in the notion that prevalence is a measure of worth.

With time, our once benign communities start feeding off this validation. Nations transform from intersectional aggregates into fused wholes: reconstructing themselves in the increasingly refracted image of their own performance. We enable them by clamouring for their stereotyped identities, and entrench them in the delusion that if they stopped proclaiming their existence, they would vanish.

This is an age of fragile nationality, where we build walls with solid air to prove that we exist. Architecture is the naked manifestation of our insecurities—of our fear of meaninglessness—and it should prompt us to grapple with that absurdist reality, not languish in comfortable delusion. It should help dismantle today’s concept of the nation, not prop up its tyrannous reign.

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Written for Karrie Jacobs at SVA Design Writing and Research.

Location New York, USA
Date June 2017