Albania to El Paso: AGENCY's Ersela Kripa on Beginnings, Human Rights, and Women Mentoring Women
By Julia Gamolina
Ersela Kripa is a registered architect and founding partner of AGENCY, Assistant Professor and Acting Director at Texas Tech College of Architecture (CoA) – El Paso, and Director of Projects at POST. She is a Rome Prize recipient and named Emerging Voice by The Architectural League of New York. Ersela holds a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University GSAPP. Born and raised under communist dictatorship in Albania, Ersela’s work is particularly focused on uncovering the machinations of the securocratic regimes that surveil and control public lives.
AGENCY leverages spatial design and information to counteract nascent forms of urban insecurity and to expose human rights violations. AGENCY’s work has been exhibited at the Hong Kong–Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale for Architecture and Urbanism, the Venice Biennale, the Berlin Biennale, Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York, etc.
In her conversation with Julia Gamolina, Ersela talks about coming from Albania and Greece, her focus on border cities, and her drive to consider those not at the table. She advises those just starting their careers, particularly women, to seek mentorship and not take no for an answer.
JG: How did your interest in architecture first develop?
EK: I really enjoyed watching my father who was a structural engineer. My first introduction to architecture was looking at his drawings that he would bring home, which were old school blueprints. I was always interested in understanding the equivalency of understanding two dimensional line drawings and the way space is used. Especially the door swings - I will never forget this - they were the strangest thing because I would look at the drawing with a quarter circle and I would look around the house and say, “This doesn’t make sense, there aren’t things shaped that way,” and he would say, “Well, that’s because it’s recording swing.” To record time with a drawing that way was just amazing to me and it stayed with me.
Also watching him install rebar and climb on rebar and formwork while they were pouring concrete, to make sure it was being poured correctly, was just so impressive to me and I knew that’s what I wanted to do. That stayed with me until I came to the US as an exchange student.
What did you learn about both architecture and yourself in studying it?
I learned resilience, because at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, critique was incredibly tough. This was the time when feedback from instructors and critique was really not what it is now. They weren’t as concerned with the mental and emotional well being of students as we are now. I think I cried at one review - so I just learned that I was resilient enough to take that, move on, and leave it behind.
Selfie Wall, courtesy of Agency.
We’ve all been there!
Right - but I don’t treat my students like that!
That is a very good point. How did you get your start in the field after NJIT?
I decided to work for two years to accumulate my hours so that I could be licensed as quickly as possible. I worked at a firm in New Jersey where the people were fantastic and really supportive. One of my classmates was working there with me as well, so it was a really nice environment.
I always knew I wanted to go to grad school though, and I don’t know if you feel this, but as a former Balkan and Eastern European person, there’s an inferiority complex. I always wanted to go to Columbia University and I never thought I was going to get in. An Ivy League education is not a thing that’s in the cards for little girls growing up in these kinds of dictatorships. But I remember driving by Columbia with my mom when she had come to visit from Albania, and I said to her, “I really want to go there, but I don’t think it’s for me, I don’t think people like us make it.” And her response was, “Oh, whatever, just try it!.” And so I worked really hard on my application, I got in, and got a scholarship. Two and a half years later I started studying in the Advanced Architectural Design program at Columbia GSAPP. That’s where I met my partner, my life and work partner, Stephen. We started dating and collaborating at the same time while in grad school.
“...we look at how architecture is used by governments and how it constructs an aesthetic that becomes a way of life, a way of fostering economic development, and disincentivizing people who are not at the table. ”
How did you eventually start your practice together?
We received a Kinne Travel Fellowship from Columbia, and started AGENCY, our practice, that way. We traveled to Albania to study the former prime minister’s, Edi Rama’s, colorful interventions and we published a small book, Nation Building Aesthetics. This was the beginning of the deep political engagement of our practice - we look at how architecture is used by governments and how it constructs an aesthetic that becomes a way of life, and a way of fostering economic development, or disincentivizing people who are not at the table.
Right after Columbia we both were working in separate firms. The firm I was working for just wasn’t engaged in the political and equity issues that I was interested in. So we both quit our jobs and won a MacDowell Fellowship right away, which is where we spent two months without internet, writing a 150 page manifesto on how we would run our practice and on the type of work we were interested in. I was mostly inspired by Mike Davis, Bill Easterly, people who are not architects and who are looking at the injustices of self-settled environments, looking at the developed world versus the developing world and how these environments are controlled.
How did you end up being based in El Paso?
We applied for the Rome Prize, and I think we were one of the youngest to receive it. They had a portfolio requirement and we just sent our 150 page book. We said, “This is it, this is who we are and you can read it or not read it, but there’s no other way we can apply. This is what we’re thinking about.”
Wow. Now that’s chutzpah.
We won! So we spent a year in Rome mapping the institutionalized racism by the Italian government of excluding the Roma population and forcing them into unwanted nomadism. Sixty to seventy percent of the Roma people are Italian citizens, they’re not really nomads, but they’re just constantly being kicked out of wherever they live. So we produced sets of maps and economic graphics that proved our case.
Then we came back to the US and I was invited to teach at NJIT for a bit, going back to my alma mater which was very nice. Stephen was invited to Washington University in St. Louis and then two years later, I joined there as well. We were on a road trip with a studio, as a way to research more topics for our book. Part of our research landed us in El Paso and we completely fell in love. I felt like El Paso is so much like Albania so it felt really familiar.
Silenced Surface by Agency.
That’s so interesting, in what ways?
El Paso is a really cosmopolitan city. The downtown El Paso and downtown Juarez, on the other side of the border, are walkable from each other. El Paso is also eighty percent Hispanic, and Albanian culture has much more in common with Mexican culture than it does American culture - the music, the food, the warmth of the people, and families there live intergenerationally which reminds me of home.
So we found out that Texas Tech was hiring and we applied and we got the positions and moved to El Paso six months later without knowing anyone. Now I direct the program and Stephen directs a research center here. The work of the book tripled because most of the sites we were interested in are within driving distance from here, so it’s an amazing ground for all of our research and first-hand photography, journalism, and mapping.
Talk to me about where you are today from a personal level and the things you’re learning from living in a border city.
I’m just really happy with where I am. Being able to direct the program of the college has been really rewarding in understanding pedagogy and curriculum and how that might be shaped in relationship to our student body. Our students vacillate between ninety-nine to one hundred percent Hispanic - English is a learned language for them. They’re generally mostly interested in South American issues rather than the well-known Western European canon of architecture.
It’s been really interesting for me, having grown up as a marginalized person, and then having lived in another country - not here, in Greece - as an immigrant, and to rethink architectural education in this context is really important. A lot of the studio work we do and that kind of pedagogy we do has been geared towards empowering our students with critical thinking skills so that they can take leadership and ownership of their own environment rather than the border rhetoric being co-opted by others for political agendas.
“The idea is to look at who is not at the decision making table, and who is being affected by those decisions. So any brief or any invited project that comes through our desk, that’s my first instinct...who are we leaving out and who is negatively impacted that doesn’t have a voice.”
Where are you with the practice?
So the AGENCY work - we’re a research, advocacy, and architecture practice. We have some projects coming up and I co-direct the research center that we have set up that looks at intersections of desertification, urbanization, and security on the US-Mexico border, but generally in border cities. We had public installations built here in El Paso but one of our biggest accomplishments is the book that just came out, Fronts, that talks about the militarization of informal environments, in a way, through mapping 500 plus simulated brick and mortar military environments. In the research center we look at the geographies by national policy and how that policy is designed to marginalize this context. The idea is to uncover environmental and human injustices. The curriculum through teaching brings all of that together while still maintaining a basic core undergraduate curriculum.
This is a lot of really deep, thoughtful, and sensitive work. What have been the biggest challenges so far?
The previous [presidential] administration’s policies and witnessing their injustices here on the ground. I have felt very inadequate as an architect to do work. We’ve done some work with Amnesty International and sometimes I wish I could give up the really slow pace of architecture and become a true activist, where the work we do and publish might have direct impact, and much faster, then what architecture as we know it does. It’s not necessarily a challenge, it’s just an internal struggle that I have, that for the kind of impact I want my work to have, architecture is not the right forum or timescale for it.
Who are you admiring right now out in the world? Who’s doing work that you think everyone should know about?
Eyal Weizman, Forensic Architecture. They’re our role model and we’ve been in some Biennales with them. I never met him, but the work he does is incredibly powerful and really important.
Ruha Benjamin is not an architect but her writing is helping the world rethink the bias of data and AI. That work is really important.
Flash Installation, courtesy of Agency.
What are you most proud of so far in your career?
Well, I’m very proud of my work - I can sleep at night! I’m very happy that it is really about supporting basic human rights.
I think I’m mostly proud of my background, having grown up in poverty with a single mom, as a persecuted family under communism. Thinking back, there is no way I would have imagined that I would be here - first of all, that I’d be in America, or in this architectural position, or that I would have built this kind of career for myself. I make it a point to talk about the beginnings. I don’t think many girls of my age in Albania took this path, or were fortunate enough to be supported.
I relate a lot to that, coming from Russia. Sometimes I think anything is possible - I mean, I’m all the way from Siberia and here I am in New York City, and here is Madame Architect. It’s unbelievable how far we’ve come with the magazine, but also how far my family has come.
That’s what feeds the work you do. The work you do is amazing and it’s just so necessary.
Coming from you that means a lot, because you’re no stranger to impact! You understand what’s important. What is your core mission, the legacy you want to leave, and the impact you want to have on the world?
That is exactly how I approach all projects. The idea is to look at who is not at the decision making table, and who is being affected by those decisions. So any brief or any invited project that comes through our desk, that’s my first instinct - okay, this is the data, but who are we leaving out and who is negatively impacted that doesn’t have a voice. That’s what drives everything I do.
“If there is a tiny spark of drive in there you have to feed it, you can’t doubt it. If you doubt yourself, who else is going to give you that confidence?”
What advice do you have for those starting their careers and would your advice be any different for women?
First of all, it would be to not take “no” for an answer. Many of our students are first generation students in college and many of them are brilliant and talented but they just don’t think they’re good enough for graduate school, or if they think they are, they’ll go to a local graduate program. I make it a point to say, look at the top ten institutions, look at the Ivy Leagues - you should be wanting the best for yourself. Most of them get accepted with scholarships that are amazing, and they do really well. For me it’s about never doubting your own inner strengths. If there is a tiny spark of drive in there you have to feed it, you can’t doubt it. If you doubt yourself, who else is going to give you that confidence?
For women, I would say to not be polite or intimidated. That’s what I’ve learned - to be polite is a way of saying that women should stay in their place, which really means not to speak up. I would say to not be polite and to not wait your turn, which is another code word for, “You’re a woman.”
I would invite all women to seek or give mentorship to other women. I’m very happy with my career and that’s because I’ve had some incredible women who have supported me. Kathryn Dean was the person who said, “You should apply for a McDowell Fellowship,” and after that she said, “You should apply for a Rome Prize!” and then she said, “You should teach!” And now I work with Dora Epstein Jones on curriculum here, and she gives me a lot of administrative advice because it’s another trajectory that I wasn’t prepared for. That’s what I’d like to end on - we as women need to offer mentorship and seek mentorship from other women.
I couldn’t agree more. I hope Madame Architect is an effective mentor too. Thanks so much Ersela.