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Dr Christina Varvia

Staff details

Dr Christina Varvia

Position

Lecturer in Forensic Architecture, Centre for Research Architecture

Department

Visual Cultures

Email

c.varvia (@gold.ac.uk)

Christina uses forensic architecture techniques and feminist epistemologies to investigate political conditions.

Christina is an architectural researcher and Lecturer at the Centre for Research Architecture, where she teaches the Forensic Architecture studio. Christina focuses on spatial and multi-media investigative techniques, with a particular focus on modelling and time-based media. She guides students through the production of ambitious investigations that have a direct impact on live political conditions, and the deployment of research on multiple fora (courts, activist spaces, parliamentary inquiries, truth commissions, media publications, and exhibitions). Her own research is on biopolitics and feminist conceptions of the human body as coextensive with their environments. She writes on expanded bodies as material fields of political practice. She reflects on image-making practices and images that capture violence. Her work with Forensic Architecture and Forensis –on airstrikes, detention, right-wing, police, and border violence– has won multiple awards and been exhibited internationally.

Academic qualifications

  • PhD in Aesthetics & Culture, Aarhus University 2025
  • Diploma in Architecture, RIBA II, Architectural Association School of Architecture 2014
  • BSc in Architecture, RIBA I, University of Westminster 2009

Teaching and supervision

Research interests

Research areas: Forensic architecture, spatial politics, visual cultures, feminist theory, aesthetics, media studies, human rights, environmental justice, environmental humanities, decolonial theory, border studies, practice-led research.

Featured publications

2022: Forensic Architecture, Witnesses
Edited together with Mette Marie Kallehauge, Lærke Rydal Jørgensen, Kjeld Kjeldsen, Eyal Weizman ISBN: 978-87-93659-55-1 Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2022

2022: Notes on the Politics of an Expanded Body
PARSE JOURNAL ISSN 2002-0953 Violence Issue 15, 2022

2021: The Space of the Body: A working definition
AA FILES, BEDFORD PRESS ISSN: 0261-6823 ISBN: 978-1-9996277-4-4 Issue 78, 2021

2021: Image Sections: The evidentiary capacity of images to sample the lifeworld and have an operative life
THE NORDIC JOURNAL OF AESTHETICS The Changing Ontology of the Image ISSN 2000-1452 Vol. 30 No. 61-62, 2021

Publications and research outputs

Book Section

  • Lead White Varvia, Christina ORCID logo . 2025. Lead White. In: Riccardo Badano; Tomas Percival; Susan Schuppli and Asli Uludag, eds. Common Sensing. Leipzig: Spector Books, pp. 153-161. ISBN 9783959056885
  • Expanded Body Varvia, Christina ORCID logo . 2025. Expanded Body. In: Eva Franch i Gilabert; Mireia Luzárraga and Alejndro Muiño, eds. 100 Words for Water: A Projective Ecosocial Vocabulary. Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers, pp. 70-71. ISBN 9783037787915
  • Habeas Corpus Expert Witness! Varvia, Christina ORCID logo . 2022. Habeas Corpus Expert Witness! In: Mette Marie Kallehauge; Lærke Rydal Jørgensen; Kjeld Kjeldsen; Eyal Weizman and Christina Varvia, eds. Forensic Architecture - Witnesses. Humlebæk, Denmark: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, pp. 68-85. ISBN 9788793659551

Article

Conference or Workshop Item

  • Itinerant Witnesses Conference Varvia, Christina ORCID logo . 2023. 'Itinerant Witnesses Conference'. In: Itinerant Witnesses Conference. Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark 28 January 2023.
  • Socializing Evidence Weizman, Eyal ; Varvia, Christina ORCID logo ; Krämer, Elisabeth; Andritsou, Dimitra ; Franke, Anselm; and Kaleck, Wolfgang. 2021. 'Socializing Evidence'. In: Socializing Evidence. Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin, Germany 9 October 2021.

Exhibition Catalogue

  • Forensic Architecture - Witnesses Kallehauge, Mette Marie; Jørgensen, Lærke Rydal; Kjeldsen, Kjeld; Weizman, Eyal ; and Varvia, Christina ORCID logo . 2022. Forensic Architecture - Witnesses.

Film/Video

  • The Killing of Muhammad Gulzar Varvia, Christina ORCID logo ; Levidis, Stefanos ; Andritsou, Dimitra ; San, Kishan ; Abuzaid, Nour ; Conte, Lola ; Nankivell, Sarah ; Trafford, Robert ; and Weizman, Eyal . 2020. The Killing of Muhammad Gulzar.

Show/Exhibition

  • Forensic Architecture - Witnesses Kjeld, Kjeldsen; Kallehauge, Mette Marie; and Varvia, Christina ORCID logo . 2022. Forensic Architecture - Witnesses. In: "Forensic Architecture - Witnesses", Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, 20 May - 22 October 2022.
  • Investigative Commons Weizman, Eyal ; Varvia, Christina ORCID logo ; Krämer, Elisabeth; Andritsou, Dimitra ; Franke, Anselm; and Kaleck, Wolfgang. 2021. Investigative Commons. In: "Investigative Commons Exhibition", Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin, Germany, 28 May - 8 August 2021.

Conferences and talks

2023: Itinerant Witnesses
Curated day-long conference at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.