Akima Brackeen is the director of Exhibit A and an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her design practice is focused on investigating the social, political, and ecological dimensions of water access in order to reveal the systems of power and care, and the material traces that shape perceptions and values within the built environment.
In the past year, Akima was awarded the Lily Auchincloss Rome Prize in Architecture at the American Academy in Rome, alongside a residency with NICHE and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and a University Design Research Fellowship with Exhibit Columbus. Her work has been featured at the Venice Architecture Biennale U.S. Pavillion, Princeton University School of Architecture, MAS Context and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, and has been recognized by the United Nations Association–Chicago
How has your time in Rome shaped or shifted the direction of your project so far?
Before arriving, I had mapped out a wide network of public fountains, aqueducts, public and private pools, and ancient bathhouses across Rome. My plan was to explore Rome’s water infrastructure using methods that are central to my practice—drawing, mapping, sketching, and fieldwork—while experimenting in ways that I’ve never done before.
Once I was in Rome, the city quickly became a kind of testing ground for that sonic curiosity. Walking through the streets, visiting aquatic sites in the cities, and simply being present pushed me to think about sound in a much more embodied and focused way. Early on, conversations with the mentors, residents and other fellows, helped me better understand the cultural values tied to water and to listening. I started to notice how these sites are deeply connected, not just in terms of infrastructure, but socially, historically, and acoustically as well. Because of this, I decided to narrow my focus and turn it into an opportunity to listen more closely. Instead of trying to cover every site I had mapped, I am now concentrating on just a few.
What part of your daily routine or environment at the Academy has most influenced you and your work?
Walking and swimming have become integral to my daily practice here. Walking 30 minutes to Testaccio to the pool and back each day has turned transit into a time for reflection, internal silence attuned to the acoustic shifts of traffic, footsteps, and voices.
Learning to swim here in Rome has also been transformative on many levels; regularly moving through water has heightened my awareness of breath, rhythm, and immersion, deepening my sensitivity to vibration and resonance. This experience has fundamentally shifted my relationship to sound (and water) in ways I am still learning how to articulate.
I’ve been feeling that time moves differently here, so indicators of time passing are always marked for me as I arrive at the fountain at the main gate, move through the pair of fountains as I pass through the entryway, and the fountain at the center of the cortile. These repeated encounters with water mark transitions between me walking, exploring, and swimming throughout my day, and inspire much of the work I’ve been doing.
Have any encounters – with people, places, new information – opened up new paths in your research or practice in the past months?
In addition to the being in dialogue with the AAR community, my time in Venice for the Architectural Biennale as well as a short residency with the THE NEW INSTITUTE Centre for Environmental Humanities (NICHE) at Ca’ Foscari University has inspired new directions in regards to process and sharing the work of Sonic Impressions. Sharing my ongoing research and past work with scholars in the Environmental Humanities field and engaging with ethnomusicologists, ecological sound artists, and anthropologists, and doing fieldwork in Venice with university students has inspired me to think about how listening operates as both methodology and form.