AnimalFarm explores the architectural history of animal farming in Europe and North America, from sixteenth-century Palladian villas until late-twentieth-century automated factory farms. The project engages with the perspectives of critical animal studies, history of veterinary medicine, and labor history. AnimalFarm ultimately explores the historical roots of a controversial phenomenon of the Anthropocene, and it fosters an alternative aze on the spatial, material, and ethical implications of the human-animal relationship through time.
The AnimalFarm seminar series consist of three talks and one seminar. They bring together scholars from different disciplines whose research intersects with architectural and animal history, as well as ethnography, critical animal studies, history of science and design theory. All talks will be in English, unless specified.

PROGRAM
Monday 05.10, 9.30–11.30, CET
Sala Mollino, Castello del Valentino, Politecnico di Torino
Giovanni Ferrarese, Dalla stalla razionale alla fattoria senza terra. Le trasformazioni della zootecnia intensiva italiana nel secondo dopoguerra (the talk will be in Italian)

Wednesday, 21.10, 2:30–6pm, CET
Sala Caccia, Castello del Valentino, Politecnico di Torino
- Introduction on AnimalFarm, by Sofia Nannini (Politecnico di Torino)
- Beyond the Serving Suggestion: On the Regulatory Architecture of Dairy Farming, by Víctor Muñoz Sanz (TU Delft)
- Keynote lecture
Stocking Density: Time, Space and Bodies in Capitalist Animal Agriculture, by Dinesh Wadiwel (University of Sydney)
“In Animals and Capital (Edinburgh UP) I argue that control over animal labour time is a key vector in considering the distinct form that animal agriculture took in accelerating line speeds and reducing the length of animal life. In this talk, I will consider how space has shaped the form of capitalist animal agriculture. I will firstly discuss the general interconnection between agriculture and the division between the metropole and colony, city and country that shape global histories of food systems. Secondly, I will examine the way in which space operates as a cost to production, and the implication this may have for the type of intensification that has occurred globally, in particular, the rise of industrial scale chicken production. Finally, I will consider the concept of 'stocking density' within animal agriculture and transport systems, as a unique marker of the life and death tensions that shape productivity and profit for capitalist food systems, and simultaneously create the conditions for an antagonistic confrontation between animal resistance and fixed capital.”
Seats are limited, and a closing aperitivo is included. RSVP (required for this event only) via this link: https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/6788139/animalfarm-opening-seminar

Thursday 22.10, 10.00–12.00, CET
Sala Mollino, Castello del Valentino, Politecnico di Torino
Camille Bellet, Milking rhythms: Sensing practices and multispecies relations in automated dairy farming

Wednesday 28.10, 16.00–18.00, CET
Sala Mollino, Castello del Valentino, Politecnico di Torino
Andrea Borghini, “Animal Farm”: Philosophical Perspectives

For online attendence please send an email to: animal.farmpolito.it

The AnimalFarm project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the Horizon Europe program (grant agreement: no. 101219242). Principal investigator: Sofia Nannini. Host institution: Department of Architecture and Design, Politecnico di Torino. More info at: https://animalfarm.info/