MARVELS AND CATASTROPHES

MARVELS

AND

CATASTROPHES

2018

R-LAB

2019

INDEX

COLLECTIVE PROJECTS

006

INTRODUCTION BY PETER LANG

ALL STRUNG UP: THE CAT’S CRADLE UNIVERSE

018

ISTANBUL DESIGN BIENNIAL

ART OF DISASTERS INTERRUPTED, THE WORKSHOP

032

040

044

050

058

COEXIST

DANS LE PAVÉ, LA PLAGE

BASTON

TIPPING POINTS

FÄRGFABRIKEN OPEN STUDIO (PART ONE)

LEXICON OF MARVELS & CATASTROPHES

078

102

UMEÅ: NORDIC HAZARDLANDS

FÄRGFABRIKEN OPEN STUDIO (PART TWO)

RENEWAL AND METAMORPHOSIS

108

110

118

126

266

268

270

272

WHAT IS THE OPEN STUDIO?

HAJK

SPIRITUAL CLEANSING

A CARTOGRAPHY OF THE ANTHROPOCENE

PERSONALIA

FILMOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

COLOPHON

002

R-LAB MARVELS & CATASTROPHES

INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS

132

138

146

154

162

170

176

184

CARLOTA MIR ARPENTAGE

VICTORIA VAN KAN 12:56

ANNA RISELL FOR THE FIRST TIME OUR WORLD

JÉRÔME MALPEL 21ST CENTURY ICON

GUSTAV KARLSSON THE WAVE OF REAL FANTASY

GERDA PERSSON SPREDFABRIKEN

BO PILO NAVIGARE NECESSE EST,VIVERE NON EST NECESSE

ANNA ASPLIND IN SEARCH OF THE MIRACULOUS THROUGH

CATASTROPHE

194

202

212

220

226

232

VERONICA SKEPPE FAUX RED

SOFIA LARSSON IF WE DON’T DO IT SOMEONE ELSE WILL

ANDRES VILLARREAL URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND ITS DISCONTENTS

ÅSA AGERSTAM HEALING TREES

BERT STOFFELS PRESERVING A PUBLIC SPACE

ANA BARATA MARTINS THE SUN RISES EVERY MORNING AT THE

SAME PLACE AND SETS EVERY EVENING AT THE OPPOSITE SIDE

238

242

246

JUSTINAS DŪDĖNAS HERE I AM. SO GLAD YOU ARE

ELENA MAZZI BUILDING A NEW LANDSCAPE

FLORENCE TACHÉ THE WORD FOR WORLD IS ENTANGLEMENT

INDEX 003

1. Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle (New York: Dell, 1963) pp 6.

“Anyway, Father looked

at that loop of string

for a while, and then his

fingers started playing

with it. His fingers made

the string figure called

a ‘cat’s cradle.’ I don’t

know where Father

learnt to do that. From

his father maybe. His

father was a tailor, you

know, so there must

have been string and

thread around all the

time when Father

was a boy.” 1

006

ALL STRUNG UP:

A GAME OF CAT’S CRADLE

In Kurt Vonnegut’s odd story about the day Hiroshima was

bombed, we meet the absent-minded Dr. Felix Hoenikker, the

fictional Nobel prize winning scientist who is one of the early

fathers of the A-Bomb, and who lives and works in Ilium, the

imaginary town located somewhere in the very real region of

Ithaca, New York. On the day Hiroshima is bombed Hoenikker

stays home with his family, fingering much of the time a loop of

string. A man with no apparent concern for his fellow human

beings, not even his own children, Hoenikker keeps fiddling

around with his string playing at cat’s cradle. One can only

wonder if there is something about the game of cat’s cradle,

a form of recreation going back thousands of years, that has

the power to reveal the mysteries of the universe?

TEXT AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY PETER LANG

When two players string cat’s cradle between their fingers

they mimic in a way the making of a rhizomatic structure.

The trick is to snatch with one’s hands the string where it

crisscrosses over, and then by pinching either side with the

utmost dexterity - swing the nodes from one player’s hands to

the other’s achieving in the process the next configuration in

the cat’s cradle. If done properly, the string shape-shifts from

a taught web to a loose tangle and then back again.

The game of cat’s cradle is an apt metaphor for today’s

rapidly changing world: we move from one uncertain state to

another, from one immanent condition to the next, passing

through disquieting episodes that move from tenuous balance

to sudden collapse. Our current environment, like the cat’s

cradle, can be strung together in multiple ways: no matter

from which end you pull the string, the whole system reacts

together going fully taut or simultaneously collapsing. The

thing you seize on pulls a slew of other things along with it.

INTRODUCTION

007

The web of reactions and counterreactions move in some

kind of unison, one thing towed along with the other. So, it’s

not about singular causality, but about interlocking events.

In other words, if you look at large scale migration that has

become such a politically charged issue, it would be impossible

to address its root cause without bringing together the

sweeping effects of climate change, which in turn cannot be

treated without understanding the impact of rising consumption

on the global scale. So it goes - as Vonnegut would say. These

factors are all strung together and impossible to separate.

The cat’s cradle is the big world picture.

There have always been, since the earliest recorded histories,

bleak premonitions of gloom and doom. The foundation myths

of the ancient world often begin in large scale calamities:

the Aztecs, for example, believed the world will have been

destroyed four times, and that the present world will be

devastated by earthquakes. If in Hellenic myth Atlantis ended

submerged under the seas, the destruction of the Roman

city of Pompeii was instead eminently factual, captured by

history’s first recorded eye-witness accounts. Emanuel Kant,

through his early studies of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake

rejected supernatural or eschatological visions on nature

arguing instead for explanations based on scientific causality.

Walter Benjamin understood the vulnerability of the city and

the macabre human fascination with urban destruction.

Catastrophes have led to the forecasting of risk, the invention

of earth sciences, and at times the suspension of the rule of

law. But we are no more capable of mitigating future disasters

or no closer to understanding the effects of cataclysms on our

lives then when the Vesuvius blanketed Pompeii. And we are

no less awed by the sublimity of these terrific spectacles then

was Pliny the Elder when he succumbed to the eruptions of

the Vesuvius while attempting a heroic naval rescue mission.

008

PETER LANG

Disasters expose human helplessness in confronting the full

force of nature, but these tragic events can also bring out the

best in human compassion and collective action.

This year’s R-Lab - and the last edition to be run from the

prestigious Royal Institute of Art - takes aim at the broader

subject of disaster, not just how life plays out in this late era

of the Anthropocene, but that which has always occupied

humankind’s deepest unconscious fears, including the

possibility of complete extinction, the frightening forces of

nature, the very science fiction possibility of an alien invasion,

and least we not forget an ageless preoccupation with divine

intervention, condemnation and salvation.

For this reason R-lab considers this subject not only from

a rational standpoint but also from what constitutes the

deeply irrational side of our human nature. Marvels and

Catastrophes, as the title of this year’s course implies, is

about an entire matrix of feelings, sentiments, responses,

that concern what could happen to us in the coming years.

Clearly there will always be those who embrace the ways of

science, but often modern rationalist thought is not sufficient

on its own to overcome the greatest anxieties facing humanity

today. We must be ready to implore the “gods,” to seek the

insight of truth-Sayers and shamans, to mix ancient rituals with

contemporary ceremonies. Genres like science fiction, and

the supernatural provide extremely rich alternative narratives,

that play with our fantasies and our fears. But it’s not enough

to probe the future through a present set of cultural tropes.

One also needs to look much further back at how the ancients

- their communities and civilizations - survived or fell to the

major threats of their times. On what was constituted their

complex belief systems? Just how did their shrines, totems,

statuaries, amulets, bracelets, customs and superstitions

act to hold their societies together in the face of great threats

and dangers?

INTRODUCTION 009

If the “science” behind climate change remains largely out

of reach to most people,-- it’s not because society at large

is incapable of processing the message, or because it is

lags behind the facts, but more likely because society has

not been able to interpret these dizzying events and complex

environmental prognostics in a manner that can be tied

together into a truly unified responsive action.

Alternatively, the success of myth- or what today is packaged

as fiction, is precisely in the strength and clarity of their

symbolic messages. What we lack today is precisely the kind of

narrative fabrication that could bring an entire world together

to combat our greatest existential threats. Something like the

fantastical world of Game of Thrones with something like the

immensely popular spectacle Eurovision tossed in, would go

a long way in propelling audiences together in unprecedented

numbers on a truly worldwide stage. If only we could unite

behind the message, we could achieve a sort of Spockian

mind meld with the earth and get things moving forward. Like

the game of cat’s cradle, the world we inhabit today is a string

of interconnected variants, some predictable, some not. But

it’s not hopeless, we just need to get into the game.

***

PETER LANG // JULY 2019

Marvels and Catastrophes moves through historic and contemporary landscapes, reflects on

societies past and present and engages with the peoples who are or will be most affected by

the forces of nature and extreme climatic reversals. R-Lab considers the preponderant forces of

nature and natural disasters on the transformation of architecture and cities, objects and rituals,

and focuses in on these conditions, including mapping, documenting as well as envisioning new

critical interventions while bringing together experts in the sciences, from a range of related

fields in the sciences, humanities and the visual arts.

What we have achieved as a class, as a collective of advanced professional practitioners coming

from diverse fields and with diverse nationalities is to investigate an array of possible outcomes,

given what we know from the past and what we can glean from the present. Our goal has

been from the start to weave together learned knowledge with experimental practices, to

critically make from what we observe, and then to critically observe what we make. Marvels and

Catastrophes set out to build on a set of international workshops, and what follows are a series

of narrative movements, each one an account of a critical phase in our work.

INTRODUCTION 011

Take a Walk on the Wild Side:

Learning from the City and Beyond (2015)

In Commemoration of the passing of Lou Reed, the punk

singer and urban poet, this is the first publication dedicated to

individual student research projects during the course at the

RIA, Stockholm. Including transcripts from “Display on Display,”

the talk show recorded at the Tensta Konsthall on Frederick

Kiesler, featuring Celine Condorelli, Thordis Arrheniucs,

Donatella Bernardi, Maria Lind, Sven Olov Wallenstein and Axel

Wieder. With notes from the Workshop at the Lido in Venice.

R-lab, Architecture, Design, Media (2016)

Compendium of individual student projects. This edition also

documents Stalker Walk Stalker, the 48 hours walk from Tallinn

to Jägala Falls, tracing Tarkovsky’s evocative locations from his

1979 film Stalker. Participants included the urban arts group

from Italy, Stalker, along with some 60 people from the Estonian

Art Academy, the Royal Institute of Art, Aalto University and

Oxford Brookes School of Architecture and independent

explorers. Also in this edition is the Magic Circle, a series of

workshops and seminars conducted at INDEX in Stockholm.

R-lab, Architecture, Cities, Utopias (2017)

Compendium of individual student projects. This edition includes

the newspaper insert - also reproduced in book format, of “The

Baltikan,” that documents two successive R-lab workshops, the

first in Mostar, the second in Riga - two cities that are peripheral

to the central Europe but part of the long ex-Soviet territory

that stretches from the Baltic to the Balkans. The newspaper

includes collective works made on site, and a number of fictional

articles by student authors using protective pseudonyms.

Some of the highlights include an interview with the urban

anthropologist Nick Dines, and an early glimpse of Mostar’s

Partisans’ Memorial, by Bogdan Bogdanovic.

R-lab, Architecture, Artefacts and Signs (2018)

The first expanded R-lab edition featuring individual student

projects and collective workshops from Sarajevo and from the

Nida Art Colony, in Neringa. Sarajevo became the focus of

body agonistics, with groups concentrating on the dichotomies

between bodies in war and bodies in sport. The Workshop

was co-organized by Emina Camdzic Sarajevo University, with

contributions by Senada Drmirovic Habibija ADA, Lorenzo

Romito NoWorking, Nicholas Boyarsky Oxford Brookes, Haris

Piplas and Alfredo Brillembourg ETH. At the Nida Art Colony,

R-lab’s artistic guide was Paulina Pukyte, Chief Curator of the

11th Kuanas Biennial, “There and Not There, (Im)possibility of

a Monument. Pukyte contributed the poetic essay “Fish Eyes.”

012

R-LAB ARCHIVE

IT”S ALL ABOUT BO”S NEGS YO

[2018-10-17, 11:02:07]

Peter:

What about last night?

[2018-10-17, 11:08:52]

Peter:

It's midday. She missed her

appointment with Bo and Gerda

this morning. I need to know

when was the last time we

saw Ana.

[2018-10-17,11:09:21]

Peter:

She is not picking up her

phone.

[2018-10-17, 11:09:25]

Bo:

we found her!

[2018-10-17, 11:09:31]

Bo:

thank you!

[2018-10-17, 11:09:56]

Peter:

Ohhhhh!

[2018-10-17, 11:10:16]

Peter:

I was about to contact the

police.

[2018-10-17, 11:10:55]

Peter:

Let's not anyone go without

some contact

[2018-10-17, 11:16:34]

Orestis:

[2018-10-17, 11:18:32]

Vesna:

Ana Barata and whoevere

else.. lets meet at 15h

infront of Hagia Sofia

[2018-10-17, 11:33:16]

Ana:

Oh my god, sorry for worry

everyone

[2018-10-17, 11:33:29]

Ana:

I passed out and woke up late

[2018-10-17, 11:33:40]

Ana:

I will go now to hagia sofia

[2018-10-17, 11:33:58]

Ana:

And then at 14h to the

turning wood workshop

[2018-10-17, 11:34:20]

Orestis:

We are going to work through

the evening I think

[2018-10-17, 11:34:54]

Peter:

Ok Ana ! Glad it was nothing

[2018-10-17, 12:43:10]

Anna A:

Come play with us!

[2018-10-17, 12:43:19]

Anna A:

image omitted

[2018-10-17, 12:45:42]

Peter:

Super

[2018-10-17, 12:50:11]

Orestis:

Niceeee

[2018-10-17, 13:18:30]

Orestis:

Some random from ours

[2018-10-17, 13:19:55]

Orestis:

video omitted

[2018-10-17, 13:20:19]

Orestis:

HAHAHAHAHAHA

[2018-10-17, 13:20:32]

Vesna:

I m kidding.. i did the

drawing

[2018-10-17, 13:42:08]

Vesna:

Very successful insta profile

[2018-10-17, 13:50:20]

K:

Great to see the process!

[2018-10-17, 13:50:34]

K:

Take it easy to everybody

[2018-10-17, 15:19:59]

Orestis:

If anyone is still at artsins

can you please get my coat?

[2018-10-17, 15:20:18]

Orestis:

It's hanged on the right side

wall as you go in

[2018-10-17, 15:20:22]

Anna A:

No we're at Arter

[2018-10-17, 15:20:28]

B:

Okay I will

[2018-10-17, 15:20:29]

Anna A:

Sorry :(

[2018-10-17, 15:20:49]

Orestis:

Thanks!!

[2018-10-17, 15:21:01]

B:

Youre welcome

[2018-10-17, 18:00:00]

Andres:

I told you shes sleeping :)

[2018-10-17, 18:01:55]

Andres:

So we all wanna go to asian

side for dinner? Shall we

all meet at the lobby at a

certain time?

[2018-10-17, 18:02:04]

Jerome:

Yes

[2018-10-17, 18:02:54]

Sofia:

Yes! 19.15?

014

BO’S ESSENTIALS

[2018-10-17, 18:02:54]

Gustav:

19:19 in the lobby!

[2018-10-17, 18:03:12]

Flo:

19.19 sounds great

[2018-10-17, 18:03:14]

Andres:

19.20 sounds good

[2018-10-17, 18:03:58]

Bo:

ok!

[2018-10-17, 18:04:13]

Sofia:

awzm

[2018-10-17, 18:09:24]

Vesna:

image omitted

[2018-10-17, 18:09:52]

Anna A:

Ok but Asey is waiting

already

[2018-10-17, 18:22:00]

Gerda:

Wait for us!

[2018-10-17, 18:22:06]

Jerome:

We are are

[2018-10-17, 18:22:10]

Jerome:

Ready to go!

[2018-10-17, 18:22:32]

Gerda:

We are coming now

[2018-10-17, 22:27:23]

T:

We will meet at the hotel to

go to the party

[2018-10-17, 22:51:44]

T:

We're in the lobby

[2018-10-17, 22:56:04]

Andres:

We just arrived at hotel

[2018-10-18, 08:46:29]

Andres:

Already at 8

[2018-10-18, 09:58:44]

Carlota:

Oh fuck off

[2018-10-18, 09:58:48]

Carlota:

[2018-10-18, 11:02:46]

Justinas:

When is anyone going to the

neon workshop?

[2018-10-18, 11:03:00]

Justinas:

Id like to jump in

[2018-10-18, 11:05:38]

Orestis:

Are you still around justas?

[2018-10-18, 11:09:25]

Justinas:

Not far away

WHATSAPP GROUP CHAT TRANSCRIPT. OCTOBER 2018

[2018-10-17, 18:09:53]

Gustav:

image omitted

[2018-10-17, 23:01:32]

Bo:

image omitted

[2018-10-18, 11:09:27]

Justinas:

Need a hand?

[2018-10-17, 18:09:57]

Anna A:

I go down

[2018-10-17, 18:15:18]

+90 538 914 10 02:

Where are you going?

[2018-10-17, 18:16:50]

T:

We will go to Kadikoy.

Probably Koço restaurant

[2018-10-17, 18:18:02]

T:

If you want to come we're in

the lobby of marmara hotel

[2018-10-17, 18:21:49]

Andres:

Is everyone here in lobby?

Are we ready to go?

[2018-10-17, 23:28:49]

Ana Barata Martins:

Party mood

[2018-10-17, 23:29:33]

Ana:

Join us

[2018-10-17, 23:29:54]

+49 1577 5952053:

[2018-10-18, 01:24:03]

Vesna:

Oh my diamond ring

[2018-10-18, 01:32:24]

Vesna:

Such a hottie..

[2018-10-18, 01:36:11]

Anna A:

[2018-10-18, 11:10:10]

Orestis:

No it's ok. We just thought

you were lost

[2018-10-18, 11:10:17]

Orestis:

[2018-10-18, 12:11:06]

Orestis:

I don't now how you all are

doing. We still need some

extra time.

[2018-10-18, 12:21:56]

Anna A:

We're here starting slowly

[2018-10-18, 12:22:26]

Anna A:

I think you might miss the

first but it's ok :)

ISTANBUL

015


016 BO’S ESSENTIALS

WHATSAPP GROUP CHAT IMAGES. OCTOBER 2018

ISTANBUL

017

THE ART OF DISASTERS

INTERRUPTED: THE WORKSHOP

UPSIDE DOWN IN ISTANBUL

“To be sure, those painful September days had their

dark beauty and as the month wore on I discovered an

important new way of making them bearable; if I swam on

my back, the pain would ease. To make this happen, I had

to throw my head very far back to the point where I could

see all the way to the bottom of the Bosphorus, but upside

down, and I had to carry on swimming in this attitude for

some time without coming up for air. As I backstroked

through the current and the waves, I would open my eyes

to see the inverted Bosphorus changing colors, fading into

a blackness that awakened me to a vastness altogether

different from the boundless pain of love—offering me a

glimpse of a world without end.” 1

TEXT BY PETER LANG. IMAGES BY JÉRÔME MALPEL

Orhan Pamuk

1. On the Museum of Innocence, Recollections and Collections.

It was a particularly insightful experience to begin our

workshop with a visit to Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence,

especially in preparation of our upcoming workshop for the

4th Istanbul Design Biennial. Pamuk’s museum was conceived

during the writing of the book, and showcased, through a

series of well-assembled dioramas and cabinet displays, the

step by step unravelling of the principle character’s privileged

life. The book, a mind meld between Nabokov and Proust

set in an upper middleclass district of Istanbul during the

mid-seventies, moves in rapid succession through a series

of recollections that become collections, including delicate

earrings, period movie posters, glasses of milk white raki,

ISTANBUL DESIGN BIENNIAL 019

common salt shakers, and discarded newspapers. Each of

these objects refers back to particular incidents in the book,

and the book makes plenty of references to how these objects

will be perceived by a public visiting the museum.

1 + 2. Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence, the novel. Maureen Freely

translation (London: Faber and Faber, 2009) pp 270

The small museum was conceived in parallel with the novel.

Kemal, the melancholic character who lives out his fictional

life in the Beyoglu district of Istanbul saviors his chance to

roam the museum when it’s complete. The novel’s fulcrum

is Kemal’s obsessive love for Füsun, a distant cousin, who

becomes the literal object of his desire. Mementos of his love,

that include trivialities like a map marking all the mistaken

sightings of Füsun around the city, are presented in displays

labeled, numbered and mounted on the museum’s walls.

The book is not so much a forensic reconstruction of a life,

as it is an ode to the process of writing. Greeting the visitor

at the entrance is a large tableau with thousands of cigarette

butts pinned like butterflies and meticulously noted by hand

in pencil. They could only have come from the lips of Füsun.

The museum, like the book, is an excruciating visual jewel.

The experience inside the museum is not unlike the 1999 film

Being John Malkovich where the main characters, played by

John Cusak and Catherine Keener, find a mysterious portal

that leads inside the mind of John Malkovich, who plays

himself in the film. It’s a surreal roller coaster ride in which

you become a voyeuristic passenger in someone else’s life.

Admittedly, the narrative is locked into a specific class and

gendered reading that gives only a narrow perspective on

life in a city like Istanbul’s, but there are a sufficient number

of self-critical digressions that make the character’s flaws

appear nearly self-reflective.

Yet there is no escaping this kind of profound interiority, as

Pamuk’s passage of Kemal swimming on his back in the

Bosphorus sea most hauntingly portrays:

020

THE ART OF DISASTERS INTERRUPTED

“Because the Bosphorus is so deep so close to the

shore, there were times when I could see the bottom and

sometimes I couldn’t, but to glimpse this brilliantly colored

realm, albeit upside down, was to see a great, mysterious

whole, at who’s sight one could not but rejoice to be alive,

humbled at the thought of being part of something greater.

Gazing down at the rusty cans, the bottle caps, gaping

mussels, and even the ghosts of ancient ships, I would

contemplate the vastness of history and time, and my own

insignificance.” 2

In some strange way, we too, the participants of the workshop

would become upside down observers of a city that would

reveal itself in fragments, scents, detritus, across steep

streets, cluttered tea rooms, and all kinds of displacing

things. For us the portal would be the amazing crafts studios

and workshops of the Şişhane district, with Asli Kiyak our

guide and mentor leading through this Escher like craft maze.

2. A School of Schools, and the importance of talking about

design education

The Istanbul Design Biennial, directed by Jan Boelen together

with Nadine Botha and Vera Sacchetti, is conceived as a

School of Schools, where

“everything and everywhere is a school, and every single

interaction we have with design is pedagogical.” 3

In exploiting the potential of Istanbul, the curators “sought

to explode the schoolhouse’s scenography of exception

from building to city. The streets become the corridors of

happenstance learning…” 4 And this reading of the city is the

critical departure point for running a workshop like the Art of

Disaster Interrupted: Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence can be

understood as a backstop to a process that unravels into the

3.Curatorial Essay, Boelen, Botha, Sacchetti, in Vera Sacchetti ed., A School of Schools Reader, 4th Istanbul Design Biennial

(Istanbul, Valiz and Foundation for Culture and Arts, 2018) pp. 46.

4. Ibid. pp. 50


Istanbul of today. The School of School’s mission, set within

six venues around the same Beyoglu district as is Pamuk’s

museum, resembles in no small way the eclectic array of

collections found gathered together in Pamuk’s dense display

of personal memorabilia.

Some of the criticism leveled at the current Design Biennial is

precisely about a nostalgia fueled vision of sixties and seventies

design, oddly coincident with the era in which Pamuk’s book is

set. 5 Yet I would see this problem more as a part of a greater

nostalgic turn, where we continuously revisit the late sixtiesseventies

culture in the futile search for the magic ingredients of

a lost revolution. We nonetheless should be resigned to the fact

that this period was neither that heroic nor that revolutionary,

if we consider that the world we have inherited remains strewn

with the debris from their misguided judgments.

But I would not avow the significance of looking back to the

seventies just yet: as I have noted in the A School of Schools

Reader, the constant rejection of the status quo by this earlier

anti-establishment generation is the real takeaway for us

today. Results in the end don’t count as much as the ceaseless

interrogation of motives and rules in the urgent drive for real

educational reform. As they had done some 50 years ago,

we must do once again, by taking our struggles back into

the streets. The university has changed significantly since

the occupations of 1968, but not necessarily for the better.

Management driven, built on the backs of a growing teaching

precariat, the universities of today farm out their talent and

outsource fundamental research. But no educational system

can do without its students: and they will remain the most

powerful and irrepressible force for change. If a School of

Schools has succeeded at all, it is because it brings us back

to the core issues on how design education could, through

the informal work of students, rethink the most urgent issues

of the day.

5. Though clearly the first is predominantly western, the latter more about the

western modernizing effects on traditional Turkish culture.


3. The Craftsmen of Şişhane, and Aslı Kıyak’s metal jungle

There were some unanticipated difficulties concerning the

premise and organization for the R-Lab workshop in Istanbul

when the program had to be tinkered with, once we had news

the course would be going to the Design Biennial. The R-Lab

course takes a very long view on disaster, anchored to the

historic accounts on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the

destruction of Pompeii - all the way to 100,000 years in the

future, the projected lifespan for the Onkalo nuclear waste

site in Finland. R-Lab’s program for the coming academic

year 2018-2019, Marvels and Catastrophes, was one of

200 projects accepted among 700 applications vying for the

biennial’s 4th edition, A School of Schools.

But unlike most of the Design Biennial’s more successful

submissions that arrived as fully developed projects, R-Lab’s

Art of Disaster workshop offered from the start intentionally

ambiguous goals - a workshop should by definition be open for

diverse forms of experiment. Most everyone has memories

of an elementary school science class where one learns to

make volcanoes explode, and this exercise became the kernel

idea behind a makerspace in Istanbul. Once we recognized the

power of this formula, the rest turned out to be quite simple

after we received the critical guidance of Aslı Kıyak Ingin.

Asli is a designer and activist who early on recognized the

profound significance of the Şişhane neighborhood, a singular

and efficient network of crafts-based businesses working in

extreme proximity. This is a tightly knit decentralized system

of urban factories whose future is threatened by displacement

and gentrification, but that collectively introduce an alternative

model for small sustainable industries. Shoehorned between

the Funicular, Galata Tower and the Golden Horn, this

dynamic neighborhood is stacked with metal workers, metal

suppliers, metal distributors, lampshade makers, small

024


lamp retail stores, related craft industries, and feed by a

fleet of transporters pushing handcarts, not to mention the

strategically located tea shops serving every one of these

buildings. Asli characterizes this area as a metal jungle: and

she continues to spearhead tactics focused on keeping the

area’s unique manufacturing network in this one place.

Asli is well known among the craftsmen, suppliers and

storekeepers in the neighborhood of Şişhane, and she has run

numerous classes with her students and students from abroad

focusing on developing locally generated design prototypes.

Asli walked our group through the district introducing us to a

fresh way of thinking about creative making, giving us access

to this distributed and decentralized factory that would be like

an expanded form of makerspace. The scope of the Art of

Disaster Interrupted workshop was not specifically the making

of design prototypes, but rather the assembly of multivalent

objects, as meaningful processes, that could express complex

sets of values, dealing with post-Anthropocene, cataclysmic,

and other future scenarios.

4. The Luggage of Immigrants, & Other Stories by Ayse Erek

Şişhane would become in the short span of 4 days a very

fertile and productive working platform for the workshop

participants. But there were also the intangible experiences,

that were more about inhabiting Istanbul, like frequenting the

city’s many coffee houses and tea rooms, strolling the streets

between simit carts and street hawkers. It’s not easy to grasp

a city that has a population of over 16 million, whose horizons

stretch well beyond the furthest hills, where skyscrapers

march one after the other across the horizon. The metro

system, ferry lines, and mini buses are straining to connect

the newest of the city’s gated cities, commercial centers and

office parks.

026


A native Istanbuler and an expert in the local contemporary

arts and design scene, Ayse Erek has a close relationship

with many of the Turkish artists residing in Istanbul and is

very familiar with cultural events going on around the city, its

international forums and exhibitions. We asked Ayse to give us

an overall view on a couple artists whose work pivots around

the major issues effecting Istanbul and she obliged us with an

in-depth discussion on the work of Gülsün Karamustafa: an

artist who has been navigating the thin line between artistic

resistance and social activism from the early seventies, and

whose career is still in full swing, with recent shows in Berlin,

Warsaw and New York.

Ayse in her survey of Gülsün’s work, focused on one

performance piece in particular, “Objects of Desire, Suitcase

Trading (Limit 100 Dollars),” for the Money-Nation Exhibition

at the Shedhalle in Zurich in 1998 that strongly resonated

with the kind of concerns that were also primary concerns of

workshop. Through the device of a simple suitcase, Gülsün

took up the role of migrant, engaging in the trade of inexpensive

goods to experience first-hand the plight of women migrants

and their efforts to ensure their own survival.

Writing in the online magazine SALT.TXT, Solmaz Bunulday

Hasgüler and Tuna Sare gave this description of Gülsün’s

artwork: In Objects of Desire, Suitcase Trading (Limit 100

Dollars) Karamustafa referred to both women and goods as

similar objects of desire. Women can be bought and sold;

they can be exchanged in order to buy another object. The

artist set out to experience suitcase trading personally and

started her project with 100 dollars, as this was the least

amount paid for prostitutes in that period. She used the

money to purchase various objects such as music boxes,

artificial flowers, men’s and women’s underwear, makeup kits,

and plastic kitchen equipment to take across the border. She

opened a stall at each city she visited and documented the


6. Bunulday Hasgüler and Tuna Sare, “Gülsün Karamustafa: A Vagabond, From Personal To Social, From Local To Global”

Originally published in Woman’s Art Journal, Vol. 35, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2014)

objects she sold with Polaroid photographs and placed them

next to the stall. 6

What became increasingly evident, was a common thread

linking several different practices that were coming together

from the time we arrived in Istanbul: the collection at the

Museum of Innocence, the manufactured objects and

utensils found in the Şişhane district, the cheap goods in

the travel suitcase. These were narrative assemblies based

on collections of objects, processes, experiences, linked

intrinsically to the Istanbul context. For in every case, whether

chasing down a lost memory, seeking ways to reinforce an

alternative artisanal economy, or describing the exasperated

condition of migration, the things themselves were the key

transmitters of the experience, without which there could be

no visceral understanding of what really was at stake, and

what such radical forms of transformation could mean.

5.Bodies and Bodies of Water around Istanbul.

Ayse introduced us to Emre Hüner, whose work echoes

Istanbul’s landscapes, its ships on the Bosphorus, and the

mysterious and abandoned industrial areas lying on the city’s

furthest edges. The Istanbul one rarely gets to see when visiting

the city for a short period of time, but essential to reading

the city’s evolution, especially when considering the fragility of

nature, the role of industry, and the unmitigated expansion

driving today’s unrelenting economic expansion. We were also

fortunate to bring in Serkan Taycan, a veteran explorer, and

whose project, Between Two Seas, addressed one of the little

known but unusually opaque grand infrastructure projects to

emerge in this area in the modern era: a new major shipping

canal to link the Black Sea to the Marmara Sea. Serkan,

in 2013, set out to trace the path of this colossal channel

meant for a new generation of large scale cargo ships, which

traversed territories and aquifers critical to the survival of

030


Istanbul’s citizenry. From his initial efforts Serkan constructed

a complete walking trail, about 60 kilometers long, which

became officially designated for hikers from across the world.

There is still no word on the fate of this megaproject, but

Istanbul just inaugurated its newest and biggest airport within

this same region.

6. The Earth School, Arter.

Our daily workshops were held in the classroom space

in the venue dedicated to the Earth School, located at the

Arter Building. We shared our floor with a collection of

‘neo-survivial’ kits, a sort of object survey and archive called

“staying alive,” brought together by the group SulSolSal. Their

eclectic collection of instruction pamphlets, model houses,

water filters, drone delivery systems, food robots, handmade

survival tools, were arranged neatly on the same steel

shelves and open framed cabinets that our classroom table

and chairs were made from. The effect was quite devastating

in its simplicity. On the day of our final review, we had been

given permission by the curators to place the work we made

ourselves—with the help of the Şişhane craftsmen—on the

same floor.

There will be more time and space devoted to reviewing the

works produced for the Art of Disaster Interrupted workshop

and this report will include these notes here in due time.

But clearly, given the premise for the workshop, its broad

geopolitical vision and anachronistic periodization, there were

no real predetermined expectations on the part of the invited

jurors, participants and public, on what would be presented

would not fall into any simple category of things. From an

earlier text written in anticipation of the Istanbul workshop:

The narration of memory and objects, whether fictional or real,

can provide opportunities to find different forms of creative


expression. Take for example the ‘evil eye’ charm or amulet,

that first emerged in the ancient Hellenic era, and that has

survived through numerous religious beliefs and reforms until

this day. The evil eye is considered effective in warding off

disasters, serving as a protective amulet. Today it can also

be purchased as a refrigerator magnet. The history of this

one object transcends history and uses and represents the

way certain objects or artefacts can impact on daily life over

extended periods of time.

Not surprisingly then, the students in conceiving and developing

their projects, consulted fortune tellers, considered different

beliefs about the afterlife and pondered reincarnation. But they

also immersed themselves in the street life of the city, reflected

on the abundant population of well-fed and well sheltered

stray cats, the political impact of pavement and re-pavement,

game theory, Arcadian life, and neighborhood solidarity, in its

many forms of consensus, trust and interdependence. One

question that solicited the most uncertainty, however, was

what would life be like in a city the size of Istanbul in 2050?

According to the fortune teller, not very hopeful, but then,

isn’t this precisely the kind of question that should drive our

current dreams and future memories? Will we still be making

museums of innocence?

***

PETER LANG // NOVEMBER 2018

032


COEXIST (!)

One of the first things a visitor notices upon arriving in Istanbul

is the presence of cats. These disrupt the stereotypical

relationship of domestic companionship that is the norm

between humans and cats in Western societies.

Beyond the vast, well documented informal infrastructures,

from food to shelter, that the city (or citizens) provide for

them, cats’ livelihoods in Istanbul are a powerful lesson. In a

global landscape characterized by imbalance, loss, and the

catastrophic consequences of human domination upon all

sentient beings, they offer an alternative model for reshaping

coexistence between species.

Cats in Istanbul exist between worlds, reshaping the relationship

between domestication, care, citizenship and wilderness. It is

not a coincidence that one of Brussels’s requirements for

Turkey to join the EU was to get rid of Istanbul’s cats. Indeed,

these cat urban ecosystems resist European models based

on domestication.

Free from human ownership but navigating between human

affection, bonding and love, Istanbul’s feline ecosystem also

defies the traditional relationship between love and property

that originated in Western capitalist societies. In a ritual of

animal polyamory, cats roam freely around the city, seeking

and giving warmth and cuddles from strangers that become

kin, and creating new networks of love between them, humans,

and the environment.

PROJECT GROUP: CARLOTA MIR, EMRE AYDILEK, FLORENCE TACHÉ, GUSTAV KARLSSON, SOFIA LARSSON, VESNA SALAMON.

NEON BY UGURLU NEON.


035

Through our project, we wanted to reflect on these feline ecosystems

by engaging with the productive ecosystems and of

the city. With the help of the Ugurlu Neon Shop in Shishane,

we used one word - coexist! - to create a neon urban sign

which materially interacts with the streets of Istanbul whilst

addressing the viewer. We also produced a project dossier,

an assembly of references and process documentation giving

context to the final produced piece.

We must learn from Istanbul and devise new ways of coexistence,

ways which resonate with Donna Haraway’s notions of

making kin:

1 Donna Haraway, “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin”

in Environmental Humanities, vol. 6, 2015, pp. 159-165

”No species, not even our own arrogant one pretending to

be good individuals in so-called modern Western scripts,

acts alone; assemblages of organic species and of abiotic

actors make history, the evolutionary kind and the other

kinds too.

[…]Making kin is perhaps the hardest and most urgent

part. […] I think that the stretch and recomposition of kin

are allowed by the fact that all earthlings are kin in the

deepest sense, and it is past time to practice better care

of kinds-as- assemblages (not species one at a time). Kin is

an assembling sort of word. All critters share a common

“flesh,” laterally, semiotically, and genealogically. Ancestors

turn out to be very interesting strangers; kin are unfamiliar

(outside what we thought was family or gens), uncanny,

haunting, active. […]” 1

So, make kin, not babies! It matters how kin generate kin.

036

COEXIST (!)


Gadenne, D., Potts, A. (2018) Felines on the fault line: Cats and the Christchurch earthquakes, Animal Places: Lively Cartographies

of Human-Animal Relations (2018) Bull, J., Holmberg, T., Åsberg, C. (eds.), Routledge, United Kingdom

§ 5199

“... the proposed changes to Turkey's very comprehensive

Animal Rights Law 5199 and the draft document which was

prepared in secret and presented to Parliament, if passed, would

mean a slow and lingering death for all of Turkey's stray animals!”

ARTICLE III. The fourth paragraph of Article VI has been

amended thus and the following paragraph has been added to

Article VI.

(...) The spay and neutering of stray animals are carried out

and regulated by Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Livestock.

Spay and neutering carried out by municipalities and other

organizations and institutions are supervised by Ministry of Food,

Agriculture, and Livestock. Spay and neutering principles and

procedures will be determined in a regulation issued by the

Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Livestock.

Local administrations are responsible for the rounding up of the

animals to the animal shelters. These animals will first be held

in the observation areas established in these centres. Animals

that have been sterilised, vaccinated and rehabilitated will be

registered and cared for in the shelters until they are adopted.

When the shelter cannot sustain the population, the rehabilitated

stray animals are accommodated in the natural life parks until

they are adopted. Land specified by Law no. 6831 of 31/8/1956,

may be allocated for this purpose for no charge, by permission

of the Ministry. The enforcement of this paragraph will be

determined in a regulation issued by the Ministry.

15.029.231

34

Ist

41o00’49’’ N

28o57’18’’ E

Istanbul

038

COEXIST (!)

10

Ne

[He] 2s22p2

Neon

20.180.

.

Gadenne, D., Potts, A. (2018) Felines on the fault line: Cats

and the Christchurch earthquakes, Animal Places: Lively

Cartographies of Human-Animal Relations (2018) Bull, J.,

Holmberg, T., Åsberg, C. (eds.), Routledge, United Kingdom



Under, over, behind, though, past, inside.

Walls, claddings, doors, roads, fences, pavements.

Istanbul is a very unpredictable city and the histories of her

people, cats and dogs are sewed together in a constantly

changing symbiosis. The mixture of cultures and history form

a vibrant mosaic of different pieces learning how to come

together every day.

Today, this reality is visible in the way politics of space have

been working since the Taksim square and Gezi park protests.

Hope has changed place and no longer lives in these places.

New places of hope are coming together as it is peoples

natural instinct to resist.

Inspired by the famous “sous le pavés, la plage!” of May 1968

we created a piece that tries to establish some relations to it.

A constantly present, constantly invisible idea of revolution and

political freedom. We considered the pavement of Istanbul to

be the symbolic element through which the political powers try

to change the way space is used for uprises (as for example

the Taksin square pavement).

Pavement is an agent used both to prevent certain uses of

space but also as protection against police and army vehicles

during protests. We see pavement as the agent that operates

for both sides. Pavement is an oppression element until it

becomes a tool against it. It is this idea that led us to work

with the pieces of pavement that have been removed or that

have a special relation to their surroundings.

PROJECT GROUP: BERIL TASOGLU, BERT STOFFELS, GÜLER AKDUMAN, GÜLBÜKE SUSARUGUR, ORESTIS NIKOLADIS, VICTORIA VAN KAN,

YUMNA MOHAMMED ALI, EMRE AYDILEK.

METALWORK BY MASTER ARTIN.


Pavé is a piece that we created with the help of a Şişhane

craftsman. It is an exact replica of an existing piece we found

in the Şişhane neighbourhood made out of a different material

aiming to represent the craftsmen role in keeping the urban

and socio-economic tissue working. The metallic piece of

pavement now lies among others in one of Şişhane’s streets

with a message of resistance inside it.

While 100% of the paper used by newspapers is imported,

paper prices increased since the 1980s when the public paper

industry was privatised. Small newspapers and brochures,

generally critical towards the political powers, have stopped

their printed versions and are now available only online. We

found old printed versions and placed them inside this secret,

always present urban element. Pavé, stands among other

pavement pieces in Şişhane.

042



The Shepherd’s Crook

Rio de Onor is a small village on the border between Portugal

and Spain. The village is centred around the river of the

same name and most of the houses are placed along two

streets on each side of the river. One person in the village,

a shepherd, had a special administrative power by means of

carrying a shepherd’s crook where information was carved

into the wood. Each house is represented by a mark and the

river is a circle around the stick. This functioned as a map of

the village where carved signs and notations were made next

to the house marks regarding economic and administrative

issues.

The Han

BASTON

A Han is a typology common in Istanbul with a history

stretching back around a thousand years. Originally it was a

place where travelling tradesmen could find a place to eat,

find water and stay overnight. Typically it was a courtyard

with only one opening, shelter for people and animals around

the four sides and a water fountain for drinking and washing

in the middle. Later these structures were extended with

more floors, a secondary courtyard and more functions such

as a mosque, social institutions and workshops. In the city,

the craftsmen working in a certain profession were usually

gathered in one han and it became a place where trade and

manufacturing took place with workshops, warehouses and

shops. As both a place providing water, shelter and essential

provisions and a place that represents a social community,

the Han is important as a meeting point.

PROJECT GROUP: ANA BARATA MARTINS, GERDA PERSSON, BO PILO.

THE WALKING STICK WAS MADE BY THE WOOD TURNER ISMAEL AND CARVED BY MASTER MUSTAFA


045

Istanbul Autumn 2018

We try to imagine a city that has disappeared or been heavily

altered by catastrophe. The exponential acceleration of

surveillance technology reinforces the city and its infrastructure

as instruments of discipline, a posthumous architecture that

fails to meet our primary needs and instead works against its

inhabitants.

Navigation out of sight from tracking, recording and recognition

or navigation without the help from that technology needs to

be disconnected from today’s established networks or perhaps

even analogue. We have to imagine an invisible infrastructure

- an architecture without buildings. What are the tools to

help us understand this architecture? What information can

they hold and how do they function, what can they be and

describe?

In a post-apocalyptic world we might need means of

communication and navigation that are durable, simple and

possibly coded.

046

BASTON

The Baston

This walking stick inspired by the shepherd’s crook from

Rio de Honor. The shape of the stick presented here is a

topological representation of a walk through Istanbul from one

Han to another. The movement is recorded not in plan, only

vertically. Also, the “x-axis” is not distance but time, making

the landscape very difficult to read in the shape, it is more

a representation of the experience of the walker. The golden

horn is represented as a carved ring and the Fatih side with a

simplified medusa head as a reference to the Basilica Cistern.

These symbols refer to physical existing conditions and could

possibly be understood by a second person, making the stick a

tool for communication. It could also be a personal navigation

tool, understood only by the person who made it as a way to

help the memory

To rethink the shepherd stick is to become aware and

reinterpret the scale at which we communicate as a

society. Rethinking scale, communication, spatial and

time orientations, and how we disseminate knowledge.

To reconnect with the ritual objects that used to be so

imbedded in every society can be a way to reconnect the

individual with its community. To have a sense of belonging

and comfort, a deeper understanding of oneself through

connecting with one’s and others personal stories, its

community histories, the folklore and vernacular knowledge

that have built a sense of identity that ultimately expresses

itself in the present members of its community.


047

TIPPING POINTS

The project Tipping Points is a participatory and performative

exercise using waste resources from Istanbul’s artisanal

workshops.

We find ourselves in a global system of actions and responses.

Human activities of extracting resources and emitting pollution

challenge the Earth’s system of feedback loops. Predictions

of the trajectory of the Anthropocene put us in a position of

choosing between keeping the balance or reaching tipping

points. These events can have predictable and unpredictable

effects on ecosystems, climate and might bring human

civilisation into uncertain conditions.

As a group of six creatives from different fields (architecture,

choreography, design and fine arts) we decided to investigate

the moment before collapse in a local context. The

neighborhood of Şişhane is located in the center of the old

city, and defined by a local network of craftsmen, all working

within a few blocks. The generation working here is ageing and

they lack successors, at the same time the district is subject

to extensive and rapid transformation and modernisation.

A recent report from the United Nations indicates that human

activities and emissions of all kinds have to drastically change

in the next decades. If we fail to take action it would already be

too late by 2045 and an array of different scenarios of major

disasters would take place. In times of instability, people seek

guidance and answers in magic, oracles and mystic signs.

We handed over the threatening scripts of the report to a

fortune teller, and recorded her visions of 2050.

PROJECT GROUP: AYSE ERDIN, JÉRÔME MALPEL, ANNA RISELL, ANDRES VILLARREAL, ÅSA AGERSTAM, ANNA ASPLIND.

WITH HELP FROM THE CRAFTSMEN OF ŞIŞHANE.


051

In Şişhane, we collected leftover materials from the different

workshops and construction sites. Inspired by the game of

Jenga, we turned our findings into components for a social

event to take place where people stacked the refined objects

into a sculptural tower and then taking turns removing

the pieces one by one and placing them on the top of the

structure, approaching the inevitable tipping point. By setting

up the game on the streets in different parts of the area, we

interacted with locals passing by. These interactions formed

a rupture in the everyday life of the city, an invitation to reflect

by doing. The game transformed the site into a momentary

collective, gathered around a game defying balance, which

ended when we together reached the inevitable collapse. In the

aftermath of the game, what we find is a pile of possibilities,

experiences and new beginnings.

052

TIPPING POINTS



[2018-10-19, 23:59:00]

Justinas:

So I'm sitting in some nice

italian bar, finally serene,

able to gaze back a little.

The last few hours of walking

for myself, having just minor

goals and interests, no

dependance, no obligations

and some limited, but

blessing self sufficiency,

what makes me feel like a

cat, measuring the landscape

of Istambul in some Kairos

units, with occasional

reading of Sontag during tea

breaks makes me write in

endless sentences. Apart of

great satisfaction with all

the time we had, I cought

a recurring theme in my

thoughts, so Im documenting

it immediately.

Community of gps satellites,

constantly murmuring for us

about threir names, locations

and times, is so close to

Vonneguts two-dimensional,

ever satisfied creatures

from Titans sirens, whose

only need is to be in touch.

Technology is a child of this

civilisation which already,

secretly has some life of its

own, but still needs to be

nurtured, needs to be needed.

I loved Wenders Untill the

end of the world, where a

vague crash of a satellite

serves as apocalyptic setting

for a romantic and distracted

road movie, where lives are

no less apocalyptic, either

because of their certainty,

or the opposite. Probably I

should write about it more

sometime.

One of the possible

catastrophes may happen

to us because of magnetic

storms of the sun, which are

totally unpredictable, and

are capable of disturbing

electronic communications.

Coils, which can be damaged

by auroras, are the vocal

chords of our society,

just like satellites, our

vestibular labyrinth. Society

of cats is immune to that,

they always fall on their

feet.

Two young women just came

into the cafe (I said its

a bar, but actually they

make pizzas here too), only

asking to take a photo with

the local cat on the couch.

Istambul is a theater of

cats, and cats are the engine

of internet. Istambul might

have a prosperous future.

There was a seemingly simple

artwork in the "earth

school", a combucha machine

begging for money because

it makes it work, so money

sustain its life. A metaphor

for all technology. Also

example of Kairos time.

(Swedish guys say also a

lot, I do now too)

The pizzeria is closing, and

I have to move already. Ill

ask the sattelites where and

when they are to map this

spot. Reduce their chatter

down to my own interest.

Enough to burden you guys.

Thats instead of the usual

goodby, for I prefer to

continue the chatter. And Im

still in this orbit.

I hope I didnt wake you up.

[2018-10-20, 00:51:45]

Vesna:

image omitted

[2018-10-20, 01:01:11]

Andres:

This is an accurate depiction

of life in germany fyi

[2018-10-20, 01:01:19]

Vesna:

image omitted

[2018-10-20, 01:01:43]

Vesna:

back to Berlin

[2018-10-20, 01:02:06]

Carlota:

Hahaha

[2018-10-20, 01:04:03]

Andres:

Thank you Peter and everyone

for the lovely trip!!

[2018-10-20, 02:30:02]

Andres:

image omitted

[2018-10-20, 02:36:11]

+385 95 808 1526:

About tonight..

[2018-10-20, 02:36:59]

Vesna:

Justinas... we love your real

time naration

[2018-10-20, 02:43:54]

Ana:

Such a cool haircut

[2018-10-20, 02:44:30]

Ana:

On vesna's control passport

pic

[2018-10-20, 11:18:59]

Jerome:

image omitted

[2018-10-20, 11:19:03]

Jerome:

For the collection

[2018-10-20, 11:45:25]

Bo:

image omitted

[2018-10-20, 15:47:31]

Peter:

[2018-10-20, 17:10:36]

054

BO’S ESSENTIALS

Vesna:

image omitted

[2018-10-20, 17:10:50]

Vesna:

Nom Nom yellow jacket

[2018-10-20, 17:11:00]

Vesna:

image omitted

[2018-10-20, 17:11:08]

Vesna:

Grossss

[2018-10-20, 17:43:46]

Vesna:

We actually did Sexist neon

sign..Justinas was right

[2018-10-20, 17:45:08]

Vesna:

(*photos made by geniously

brilliant Jêrm Mlpl)

[2018-10-20, 19:56:42]

Bo:

fantastic: https://youtu.

be/0YofAzLcIU8

[2018-10-20, 20:15:01]

Flo:

Hahaha looks like we did

indeed ! Though the great

women presenting it still

make it kind of donna

haraway-ish anyways ;)

[2018-10-20, 20:24:07]

Orestis:

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

[2018-10-20, 22:28:04]

Carlota:

Why is it a sexist neon

[2018-10-20, 22:28:10]

Carlota:

I'm lost ♀

[2018-10-20, 22:28:39]

Vesna:

Look at the photo.. latest

one

[2018-10-20, 22:29:12]

Carlota:

Ohhhhhhh

[2018-10-20, 22:29:15]

Carlota:

It says sexist

[2018-10-20, 22:29:19]

Carlota:

Pahaha

[2018-10-20, 22:29:21]

Carlota:

[2018-10-20, 22:30:27]

Carlota:

Slow mode

[2018-10-21, 12:25:07]

Justinas:

Some documented process:

https://youtu.be/pKlKjPrn7LY

[2018-10-21, 12:40:10]

Orestis:

[2018-10-21, 12:40:19]

Orestis:

[2018-10-21, 15:11:58]

Ana:

What was inside the box?

[2018-10-21, 15:31:24]

Carlota:

We have post Istanbul

depression and have watched

the netflix documentary on

ciya kebab

[2018-10-21, 15:31:28]

Carlota:

Totally recommend

[2018-10-21, 15:31:31]

Carlota:

We're crying

[2018-10-21, 15:31:33]

Carlota:

Lol

[2018-10-21, 15:32:24]

Carlota:

Stockholm feels extremely

cold and grey!

[2018-10-21, 15:41:10]

Flo:

time to cook something with

the spices you bought in

Istanbul ;)

[2018-10-21, 17:13:10]

Gustav:

It sure is grey and cold in

sthlm

[2018-10-21, 17:14:25]

Gustav:

I just had installed my evil

eye when I noticed that my

cucumber had turned yellow!

Must be the grey cold wester.

So weird so delicious

[2018-10-21, 17:14:42]

Gustav:

*weather

[2018-10-21, 17:22:32]

Justinas:

Winter banana

[2018-10-21, 17:23:39]

Orestis:

Hahahahaha

[2018-10-21, 17:23:54]

Orestis:

Pure beauty

[2018-10-21, 17:56:15]

Bo:

thanks! we feel the same way.

[2018-10-21, 18:00:13]

Vesna:

Well.. just move to Berlin

[2018-10-21, 20:21:36]

Justinas:

Some more sentiments:

https://youtu.be/HmyW2O8SGHQ

[2018-10-21, 21:11:15]

Vesna:

Oooh wow thank you

WHATSAPP GROUP CHAT TRANSCRIPT. OCTOBER 2018

AFTER ISTANBUL

055



WHATSAPP GROUP CHAT IMAGES. OCTOBER 2018

AFTER ISTANBUL

057

LEXICON OF MARVELS

AND CATASTROPHES

This was the first “Open Studio” experiment to be hosted

at Färgfabriken and conducted by the team from R-Lab

Marvels and Catastrophes.

Staged on a frozen but sunny Saturday afternoon on the 26 of

January, the Lexicon workshop’s main objective was relatively

straightforward, to invite the public to bring with them:

“objects, things or ideas that you

want to take with you into the

ever changing present! The R-Lab

group will sort out your stuff and

categorise, document and then

will arrange it with all the other

creations.”

TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPH BY PETER LANG. DRAWINGS BY WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS

Of course there would be questions about the nature of the

ever changing present - clearly there was this premonition

hanging over everyone’s heads about an unpredictable

transformation already in the making, not just the mounting

number of climatic threats adding to one’s list of uncertainties,

but also the standard unpredictables, the earthquakes, fires

and meteorite showers that follow no rational or universal

script, but that edge one towards accepting the practice of

superstitions, rituals and any of the plethora of Gods that

might provide some other kind of salvation.

FÄRGFABRIKEN OPEN STUDIO

059

The Lexicon then, is just this sort of start-up list of things and

ideas that could offer comfort or sustenance when we find

ourselves under these impending forms of stress.

“we hope to create a real-time live

Lexicon on Marvels and Disasters

that will grow bigger and bigger

with each successive event, and the

R-Lab team hopes to understand

how your things fit together with

other peoples’ things, whether

they can coexist with each other,

cooperate with each or otherwise

cancel each other out.”

And in fact, over the afternoon, the Lexicon team began to

observe a unexpected pattern among the public’s contributions

and conversations, an amalgam of considerations on

predictable predictables, unpredictable predictables, and

unpredictable unpredictables, to play loosely with the well

known Donald Rumsfeld principle. We were not only beginning

to assemble a Lexicon of objects and ideas, but we were

witnessing a Lexicon of an entirely new kind in the making…

***

PETER LANG // JANUARY 2019

060 LEXICON OF MARVELS & CATASTROPHES


061

#001

TYPE: object

COLOUR: dark grey / black /

anthracite

MATERIAL: lava stone

DIMENSIONS: 145g / 28 x70 x 48 mm

NOTES: I found this piece of lava on a beach in

the Western tip of Iceland while

traveling with my mum. This beach was very

special as a volcano erupted long

time ago and covered the whole area with lava.

Sometimes in the 1800s, a

British ship got into a storm and sank.

Eventually, some pieces ended up on the

shore and after some time the rust coloured

the metal pieces into a flamboyant orange,

giving a very special touch to the dark

landscape of the beach.

#002

TYPE: object

COLOUR: grey

MATERIAL: lava

DIMENSIONS: 15g / 35 x 40 mm

NOTES: Rock from Pompeii that I took on my

trip there over Christmas. I don’t think it’s

allowed which makes me treasure it even

more.

#003

TYPE: object

COLOUR: grey / green

MATERIAL: metal / plastic

DIMENSIONS: -

It is an object I found in 2007 in my first trip

to Stockholm. The little metal guy immediately

became a symbol of me living in Stockholm.

I moved here 3 years later and brought it

with me. We’re living together happily since

then. Since it’s made of metal, it’ll survive a

catastrophe!


#004

TYPE: object

COLOUR: red

MATERIAL: plastic and metal

DIMENSIONS: 64g

NOTES: It’s a knife. Vectorinox.

I brought it because I had it for a really long

time (since 1986) and since that it’s probably

made of good quality and will last long. It’s my

first knife I ever got so it has an emotional

value.

TEXT AND OBJECTS BY WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS

#005

TYPE: idea

COLOUR: bright / white

MATERIAL: abstract

DIMENSIONS: -

NOTES: Does many thingy for a candelabra.

#006

TYPE: experience

COLOUR: green

MATERIAL: drawing

DIMENSIONS: -

NOTES: Notes: This drawing was made by my

9 year old daughter in 2016. It illustrates a

volcano eruption in El Salvador that the whole

family did experience when travelling in the

eastern parts of the country. What seems to

be falling from the sky illustrates ashes.


063

#007

TYPE: object

COLOUR: silver grey

MATERIAL: silver

DIMENSIONS: -

NOTES: The item I’ve brought is a Kuna coin.

It has the Tuna fish engraved on the back.

Croatian Kuna and Tuna fish are endemic

species, the future doesn’t seem bright.

But… Sea Shepherd organisation protected

marine life and Greenpeace stopped

deforestation. The future coin-coin-emblem is

the spectrum shell mermaid.

#008

TYPE: object

COLOUR: grey

MATERIAL: plastic

DIMENSIONS: -

NOTES: Duct tape makes everything better.

#009

TYPE: object

COLOUR: yellow / white

MATERIAL: natural / bean

DIMENSIONS: -

NOTES: Lucky bean is with me for the first

five years. I just kept on wearing it or keeping

it in my bag. It has a smiley face on one of

the sides. It might bring luck sometime in the

future, plant more beans, eat more bean soup.


#010

TYPE: object / dream

COLOUR: blue / grey / red / white / yellow

MATERIAL: rock

DIMENSIONS: 241g

NOTES: I had a dream that the Moon came

closer and closer and I said “this is it?” and

when it came so close that light whited

everything out.

PS: I haven’t seen Melancholia.

#011

TYPE: object

COLOUR: earth

MATERIAL: earth

DIMENSIONS: -

NOTES: This thing has become a kind of amulet

for me, even if I have never had any interest

in them. Somehow it just became treated as

such, immediately after I formed it out of clay

and stone. As if I managed to externalise a

part of me quite accurately, maybe something

that I would dream of, meet, or just become in

the future.

#012

TYPE: object

COLOUR: yellow / grey

MATERIAL: concrete

DIMENSIONS: ca 180 x 350mm

NOTES: I brought drawings of the closest bomb

shelter in case nuclear war starts during the

workshop.


065

#013

TYPE: object

COLOUR: orange

MATERIAL: plastic

DIMENSIONS: 221g

NOTES: För att man kan panga Aliens med

den. (So one could shot Aliens with it)

#014

TYPE: object

COLOUR: blue

MATERIAL: feather

DIMENSIONS: 22g

NOTES: As a child I found a kingfisher feather

while having a walk with my grandfather.

This bird is declining in France and I never

had myself the opportunity to see one with

my own eyes, but finding the feather got

my grandfather to share is own childhood

memories of nature and his stories of

kingfishers. Then, I made a pendant of the

feather and wearing it makes me feel like I

could get a bit of the knowledge my grandfather

had of this bird. Now the pendant is lost and I

still haven’t seen a kingfisher for real.

#015

TYPE: object

COLOUR: white (200, 182, 163) / red (142,

29, 28) / black (33, 27, 17) / yellow (203,

150, 19) / blue (7, 52, 93)

MATERIAL: plastic

DIMENSIONS: 123g

NOTES: En Peugeot (A Peugeot)


#016

TYPE: story

COLOUR: -

MATERIAL: sound wave

DIMENSIONS: -

NOTES: I brought an anecdote / sound

wave that I heard from the author Henry

Martinsson. He asked people what they would

do if they could wish, after all their basic needs

were fulfilled. Almost everyone answered:

“I want to see the world.” This was maybe

in 1950. Today, many live a confortable life

with more then they need and possibilities to

see the world has never been bigger. But we

shouldn’t. Because flying is not working. What

is the human animal supposed to think about

this - the chance of fulfilling but the moral

responsibility to say no.

#017

TYPE: object

COLOUR: brown, gold, white

MATERIAL: paper, cardboard and leather

DIMENSIONS: 175 x 120 x 42mm / 592gr

NOTES:I brought this book (Marcel Proust - In

search of lost time) because I think it will be the

only book I would like to save if things come to

an end. This book has the ability to bring back

so many memories, visions, spaces from the

past, through the narrative, that anyone could

reflect to one own past. Everyone should have

a copy and read it, now or later.

It is wonderful.

#018

TYPE: object

COLOUR: neon pink, light gold

MATERIAL: cheap metal and plastic, I think

DIMENSIONS:

NOTES:


067

#019

TYPE: object

COLOUR: silver grey / brown

MATERIAL: metal / wood

DIMENSIONS:

NOTES:This is an object saved for a long time

due to unknown reason, but of an important

sake.

#020

TYPE: story

COLOUR: blue / transparent

MATERIAL: water

DIMENSIONS:

NOTES: The story of the fresh water bubble

under the city of Venice: it was drunk…

The wells are now sealed and the city is

sinking. A learning story brought to prep

survival

#021

TYPE: object

COLOUR: grey / white (124, 114, 99) / black

/ yellow (186, 153, 80) / red (151, 28, 64)

/ brown (108, 60, 30)

MATERIAL: fabric / leather / metal

DIMENSIONS: 371gr

NOTES: Billhjälmen / The car helmet

A symbol of how we build a society we need to

protect ourselves from.

Self-destruction - disaster - marvel.

The car being a symbol of climate change of

course! The helmet indicates danger.


#022

TYPE: idea

COLOUR: green

MATERIAL: -

DIMENSIONS: -

NOTES: Hartmunt Stockler / Das schillernde

lexikon (The glittering lexicon)

It is both a beautiful solution and a scary vision

of the future. A backpack that is a green

house, that gives oxygen to the person wearing

it. A beautiful view - a backpack at the same

time.

#023

TYPE: object, story, idea, fantasy, dream

COLOUR: RGB 56, 57, 56 / 18, 24, 25

MATERIAL: several / clay

DIMENSIONS: 140 x 70 x 2 mm / 70g

NOTES: I always bring it with me.

#024

TYPE: object

COLOUR: white

MATERIAL: plastic

DIMENSIONS: -

NOTES: This is the object I use the most and

I accidentally stole it from a friend Andreas

Farkas. I have not return it.


069

#025

TYPE: object, fantasy

COLOUR: clay

MATERIAL: clay

DIMENSIONS: 227g

NOTES: Clay mermaid, cos I made it!

#026

TYPE: object

COLOUR: terracotta

MATERIAL:clay

DIMENSIONS: -

NOTES: The day after tomorrow:

A Rambo knife to survive the day after

tomorrow.

#027

TYPE: object

COLOUR:

MATERIAL:


NOTES:


#028

TYPE: object

COLOUR: brownish

MATERIAL: trolldeg


NOTES: It is someone’s unknown story. You

could barter with it Garfield is eternal

It’s very melancholic . You could eat it when in

a pinch.

#029

TYPE: object

COLOUR: blue, black

MATERIAL: wood, paint

DIMENSIONS: 220 x 70cm / 62g

NOTES: Maracas. Object for euphoria,

celebration, escape from drudgery of everyday

life; for ritual, communication, warning. Music

has a place in any human future, so does

decoration. This decorated musical object

symbolises how close at hand these intuitions

are in our social repertoire.

#030

TYPE: object

COLOUR: deep purple

MATERIAL: beautiful crushed velvet

DIMENSIONS: 46g

NOTES: It is useful and beautiful. It is an objet

in which I can put other objects and carry them

with me. The inside is made of waterproof

fabric, so I could carry liquids in it. If I would fill

it with something soft and fluffy, I could use it

as a small pillow. My object is a tote bag.


071

#31

TYPE: dream

COLOUR: colourful

MATERIAL: immaterial

DIMENSIONS: -

NOTES: It will stick around (forever probably)

It is not defined or cornered by borders nor by

present or past states. It doesn’t die when I

die, it transfers to another being as a gift if it

wants it It is constantly changing and evolving

making the future with it exciting and unknown,

as it grows: it becomes a bag of very unknown

fantasy dreams.

#032

TYPE: idea

COLOUR: light beige to dark brown

MATERIAL:

DIMENSIONS:

NOTES: Päls / Fur. In the future it can be good

to wear fur, but also to have fur. If we kill an

animal we need to make use of it as much

as possible. We also need to be more like

animals, ie have more hair / be hairier.

#033

TYPE: object

COLOUR: brown

MATERIAL: rotting flesh

DIMENSIONS: 160gr

NOTES:This specimen of Murry cod

(Maccullochella peelii) is one of over one million

fish that we recently killed in the Menindee

(?) lakes in Western NSW, Australia. The

catastrophic event was caused by the rapid

growth of blue green algae in the river system,

which starved of oxygen, which was caused by

extreme warm temperatures, lack of water,

slow and total mismanagement of the river

system by farms, mines and government

agencies.


#034

TYPE: object

COLOUR: red / brown

MATERIAL: clay

DIMENSIONS: -

NOTES: The mushroom will take over the world!

-Zombie ants

-Mykeshitza (?)

-And so on…

#035

TYPE: story

COLOUR: grey / brown

MATERIAL: phosphate

DIMENSIONS: -

NOTES: Naurus öde, ett varnande exempel.

Kungariket Nauru i Stilla Havet som sålde alla

sina naturtillgångar i utbyte mot mycket och

snabba pengar. Nu är rushen över och Nauru

har lämnats åt sitt öde, med vare sig kapital

eller natur kvar. Gonatt!


073

IT’S ALL ABOUT BO’S NEGS YO

[2019-01-24, 13:49:04]

Ana:

Sorry guys im late

[2019-01-24, 13:49:09]

Ana:

Start without me

[2019-01-24, 14:06:14]

Andres:

A question, who else will

be joining the discussion

today at 5 or earlier? Jerome

right?

[2019-01-24, 14:07:01]

Jerome:

Im free from 5, if you guys

are still around I'll pop by

(around 5:30 the time to get

there) keep me updated!

[2019-01-24, 14:07:15]

Åsa:

Same here!

[2019-01-24, 14:08:55]

Anna A:

image omitted

[2019-01-24, 14:09:46]

Jerome:

Cosy but no tea?

[2019-01-24, 15:18:57]

Gustav:

+1

[2019-01-24, 15:20:32]

Ana:

Jerome the 17h-19h30 schedule

is still on

[2019-01-24, 15:20:35]

Peter:

5 pm is Researching the

Commons Rutiga Golvet

[2019-01-24, 15:27:58]

Ana:

Is that your presentation?

[2019-01-24, 15:34:23]

Peter:

No it's the usual curated

cool talk Stephanie Hessler

[2019-01-24, 16:41:16]

Johanna:

Hi and thank you for letting

me into this group! I didnt

know it excisted until today

so I have missed quit a lot I

guess. I'm not able to make

it today nor tomorrow but

hopefully in the weekend. /

Johanna W

Veronika Wallinder's email?

[2019-01-24, 16:58:13]

Ana:

Are we meeting now at 17h?

[2019-01-24, 17:05:10]

Anna A:

Lets say 17.30!

[2019-01-24, 17:05:17]

Ana:

Ok

[2019-01-24, 17:05:35]

Anna A:

If you're here come to rutiga

golvet!

[2019-01-24, 17:06:13]

Jerome:

But are we discussing the

workshop or going to rutiga

golvet?

[2019-01-24, 17:06:53]

Gustav:

Rutiga golvet!

[2019-01-24, 17:07:45]

Andres:

We will discuss when

everyone has arrived

[2019-01-24, 14:37:26]

H:

I'm afraid I took my morning

off work To go to crematorium

with a friend this morning

to see her mother's body, so

have to work late

[2019-01-24, 14:54:59]

Bo:

i will try to be there at 5

if you are still there

[2019-01-24, 15:00:21]

Andres:

Yes we have some ideas we

wanna run by you

[2019-01-24, 15:17:33]

Bo:

good!

[2019-01-24, 16:44:24]

Peter:

I apologise for thi Johanna

I also sent out emails

separately and in the google

group. Are you not getting

these either?

[2019-01-24, 16:45:14]

Johanna:

I haven't gotten anything

this year

[2019-01-24, 16:46:19]

Johanna:

I will take a better look in

the google group, a bit bad

with google

[2019-01-24, 16:48:36]

Peter:

That's a problem did you get

[2019-01-24, 17:07:50]

Ana:

Apparently first rutiga

golvet and then workshop

[2019-01-24, 17:09:29]

Anna A:

We can start now but only Bo

arrived, that's why we pushed

it forward.

[2019-01-24, 17:15:34]

Jerome:

I'm just leaving work now in

Söder will take me 30 mins to

get to school please start!

[2019-01-24, 17:27:07]

Anna A:

Ok, we start 17.30

[2019-01-24, 17:35:16]

074

BO’S ESSENTIALS

Andres:

Which room did you go to?

[2019-01-24, 17:35:41]

Anna A:

Outside Peters office

[2019-01-24, 17:45:04]

Andres:

Gustav where did you go?

[2019-01-24, 17:47:58]

Gustav:

Wooops, at Kouohs

presentation

[2019-01-24, 17:49:09]

Gustav:

Thought everyone was here,

but realize now everyone is

not. Ill try to leave

[2019-01-24, 17:49:38]

Ana:

We are at the third floor now

[2019-01-24, 17:49:42]

Ana:

Come here

[2019-01-24, 17:51:23]

Ana:

@46707535195 we are at the

third floor

[2019-01-24, 17:51:26]

Ana:

Join us

[2019-01-24, 18:30:52]

Peter:

Are you still upstairs?

[2019-01-24, 18:31:09]

Andres:

Yes

[2019-01-24, 18:31:47]

Peter:

Ok we're almost over down

here

[2019-01-24, 19:37:58]

Lea:

Hey we lost you? Did you go

somwhere for drink?

[2019-01-24, 19:42:07]

Bo:

did you go for a beer?

[2019-01-24, 19:42:08]

Vesna:

Hey guys. We were thinking of

going to Carmen bar..

[2019-01-24, 19:42:36]

Vesna:

Yes where are u?

[2019-01-24, 19:47:41]

Vesna:

I have a dinner but will join

you after!

[2019-01-24, 19:48:28]

Vesna:

A friend of mine is playing

on Riche 20-22 think it can

be nice!!

[2019-01-24, 19:57:06]

Gustav:

Lost Andres around Slussen.

But I think we're both

heading for Carmen

[2019-01-24, 20:01:39]

Jerome:

All roads lead to Carmen

[2019-01-24, 20:16:08]

Peter:

I am leaving school now you

will still be at Carmen?

[2019-01-24, 20:19:18]

Gustav:

Just arrived at Carmen,

no R-Lab here yet though,

except for Gustav. Maybe I

head back home and make hot

chocolate instead

[2019-01-24, 20:19:46]

Jerome:

Yay chocolate!

[2019-01-24, 20:20:51]

Vesna:

We te in Carmen yes

[2019-01-24, 20:21:13]

Vesna:

Carmen! On the right

[2019-01-24, 20:21:23]

Andres:

We are her undee the tv

screen!

[2019-01-24, 20:21:41]

Vesna:

Location: https://

maps.google.

com/?q=59.315132,18.076229

[2019-01-24, 20:21:45]

Peter:

Ppl

[2019-01-24, 20:21:50]

Peter:

Ok

[2019-01-24, 20:22:54]

Gustav:

Lol. I went to Kvarnen. Samma

lika

[2019-01-24, 20:23:14]

Vesna:

Its close by.. come

[2019-01-24, 20:24:07]

Gustav:

I live in sthlm acting like a

tourist. All new, All nice

[2019-01-24, 21:07:36]

Anna R:

Great seeing you all today,

good luck on the rest of the

workshop!

[2019-01-24, 21:08:01]

Vesna:

[2019-01-24, 22:44:43]

Gustav:

R-Lab, such a nice group of

people!

[2019-01-24, 22:44:56]

Gustav:

Ps: årets Majblomma

[2019-01-24, 22:45:11]

WHATSAPP GROUP CHAT TRANSCRIPT. JANUARY 2019

STOCKHOLM 075


076

BO’S ESSENTIALS

WHATSAPP GROUP CHAT IMAGES. JANUARY 2019

STOCKHOLM

077

NORDIC HAZARDLANDS

We arrived by night train in Umeå, Västerbotten, on an early

and crisp March morning. A morning that would be the

beginning of our third workshop and four days of explorations

in this – for most of us – unacquainted city.

This trip was our second delving into the topic of Nordic

Hazardlands. A topic initiated by the Stockholm based research

and design think tank LABLAB “dedicated to understand the

social, ecological and spatial transformations in the Nordic

and Baltic Sea Region”. 1

TEXT BY ANNA ASPLIND, ANNA RISELL & FLORENCE TACHÉ

IMAGES BY R-LAB GROUP

The intention of the Nordic Hazardland workshop was to invite

“participants to look beyond the well-known factors of causality

in order to broaden the field of inquiry to include archaic myth

of origin, the tradition of native peoples and local customs,

forms of internal colonization and government programs for

immigrant resettlement, as well as historic logging, mining

and industrial practices. The Nordic regions have over the

centuries cultivated strong independent survival practices,

and these customs and updated practices may offer clues

for improved and critical strategies for more sensitive

development.” 2

1. www.lablab.se 2. ibid.

UMEÅ 079

The question still remains - is the whole of Sweden considered

as part of the Nordic Region in this context, or does the

concept refer to the northern part of the country (-ies: including

Finland and Norway), beyond some vague frontier (from the

southern perspective)? Since the concept of hazardlands

didn’t fully come with an explanation before or during our stay,

it left some space for us to build a concept of our own. To

pursue a proposed lead from the first seminar that was held

at KKH in December: the French word hasard meaning “a

chance occurrence”, probably describes well how we received

both the stay, as well as its collecting title. So, the workshop

could thus be said to deal with the North (including Umeå) as

on the one hand, a land of fortuity, and on the other, prone to

damage and disaster – Marvels and Catastrophes.

3. Anna Asplind “In Search of the Miraculous” 2019.

The week unfolded as a web of several trails, here and

there meeting in nodes. On our first day some of us visited

Västerbottens Museum to engage in “the tradition of native

peoples and local customs”, others made it to Norrlandsoperan

where E|A|S - Evolving Asteroid Starships was exhibited in

their Vita Kuben. Some were intrigued by inaccurate google

earth images and discovered a brand new IKEA store where

the satellite had only captured an open field. Other means

of discovery were offered through the overlayering of two

different maps 3 , none of which described Umeå; this merge

paired with fantasy and an appetite for adventure enabled

another fraction of our group to find themselves walking

persistently towards the unknown, ending up on Teg and being

mesmerized by lichen growing on a facade facing north. At

Kvinnohistoriskt museum yet another party explored the history

of women, activism and reorganizing societies 1789-1914.

The group reassembled at Bildmuséet for a guided tour by

curator Anders Jansson. On this day we were also welcomed

by Marie Kraft, lecturer at UMA School of Architecture who

gave us a tour of the facilities.

082

NORDIC HAZARDLANDS

On the second day, happenstance guided our nomadic

excursion to the island Ön (“the Island”), located on sight

distance from the city center, in the middle of Ume älv. Our

walk was interrupted when encountering pieces of abandoned

structures, vestiges of past and expired functions. During

these momentary lapses, new narratives unfolded, imaginary

continuations of the elements were created, as well as

speculations about the structures’ former purpose.

The third day contained the symposium On the Frontier of

Mental and Spatial Change in Swedish – German Countryside(s)

with the ambition to understand and to connect historic

and contemporary transformations affecting the Swedish

and German countryside(s). The symposium, supported by

the Goethe Institut, was conceived by Daniel Urey, head of

LABLAB and earlier engaged in developing the international

urbanisation programs at the contemporary art centre

Färgfabriken. Invited guest speaker was Dr. Martina Doehler-

Behzadi, Director at IBA Thüringen, Germany.

Whether or not Umeå should be seen as a part of the

Swedish countryside – Umeå is the largest conurbation

in Norrland, and ranked 11th in the country 4 – the vague

transition between the urban and the rural landscape is as

present here as in any other city. While walking around in

these areas, as well as in the central parts of Umeå, again

and again we stumbled across a company that caught our

attention, Balticgruppen (“the Balticgroup”). Balticgruppen

is a private property company that manages many of the

ongoing building projects around the city of Umeå. Väven

(culture center) and the arts campus are examples of their

bigger projects. At their web page Balticgruppen highlights

their aim “Tillsammans mot det bästa Umeå” (“Together

towards the best Umeå”). In 2015 Balticgruppen created

an enterprise in corporation with Wallenberg; owning equal

shares, this enables for Balticgruppen to release capital and

4.www.scb.se

5.www.umea.se/arkiv/pressmeddelanden

UMEÅ 085

6. One telling story might be the urban development of “Ön” being delayed by the presence of an endangered species onsite:

www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vasterbotten/hotad-fagel-riskerar-att-stoppa

continue their investments in Umeå. 5 In order to return to

the LABLAB description of hazardlands: “The Nordic regions

have over the centuries cultivated strong independent survival

practices, and these customs and updated practices may

offer clues for improved and critical strategies for more

sensitive development.” With Wallenberg investing 50% in the

local company, how well does this match with the anticipated

“critical strategies for more sensitive development”?

The stay concluded in a one-day workshop at UMA where we

collected our findings on the topic “the Almanac of Marvels

and Catastrophes 2019-2020”. Discussions circulated

around questions of how we orient ourselves in the world

of today, of how we meet the unpredictable, of methods to

make predictions of the future. As a starting point, the word

“hazard” was interpreted as uncertainty, from which the

group set up a work around the idea of a contemporary

almanac for anticipating future events based on current

circumstances. A diversity of almanacs were collected at

Umeå’s library and archives: old and new, rural and urban.

Under their lead we created our way through ideas such

as forecasts, contingencies, tying time and space through

climate, and observing and handling our relationships with

our environment through formal rituals, celebrations and

sayings. In that way, the almanac became a tool or a ritual,

which could help us handle both the dependable in the world

and the uncertain, both wonders and disasters. We created

sketches and diagrams that could be part of an almanac for

2019-2020, a guide through which one could go through

the changes in our increasingly marvelous and catastrophic

world.

Although the theme of this workshop and trip was Nordic

Hazardlands, many of the conversations revolved around

existential issues, such as “How to be a person in this

world?”. In fact, that could be considered a result of the

086

NORDIC HAZARDLANDS

ongoing conversation of “How to be a city in this world?”.

This question circles the expectations that are building up

through urban development projects such as the speculations

on the future development of the rural insula, “Ön”, and the

ongoing construction sites of Balticgruppen. Who will decide

the future history of Umeå? Who will dictate the future history

of the individuals? In our regard we saw Umeå struggling with

the identity as a city close to nature, at the same time fighting

for their presence on the global city scene. 6 With the recent

appropriation of the history of the Same culture and desperate

attempt to now let their voices be heard in order to rewrite

that taken history, the question arises: Who are we to talk

about Nordic hazardlands in this context? A small group of

students from the “south” in a – for us – unknown landscape.

Was there a way for us to listen to the local stories, hidden in

the landscape and culture without colonizing?

***

UMEÅ 087

Almanack 1967: Till Stockholms Horisont. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (Uppsala: Almquist & Wiksell, 1966)

The Almanac of Marvels and Catastrophes 2019-2020

The Almanac of Marvels and Catastrophes 2019-2020

096

NORDIC HAZARDLANDS

UMEÅ 097

Excerpt from Bondepraktikan (Old Farmers Almanac)


[2019-02-08, 14:17:20]

Peter:

People I should mention that

I heard back from Istanbul

about the shipping. DHL

considers most as garbage and

are not legally allowed to

ship it. The biennial offered

to keep the neon sign in

their permanent collection...

Comments?

[2019-02-08, 14:29:13]

Carlota:

not allowed to ship a parcel?

[2019-02-08, 14:29:29]

Carlota:

omg

[2019-02-08, 14:36:36]

Flo:

That's a shame... there would

be a lot to discuss about a

proper definition of garbage

[2019-02-08, 14:38:57]

+33 6 89 35 21 24:

Anyway leaving the néon to

the biennale is fine by me,

if others agree

[2019-02-08, 14:48:43]

+46 70 753 51 95: Good to

know laws on shipping and

definitions of Garbage

[2019-02-08, 15:20:34]

+46 70 349 09 13:

It's fine by me as well!

[2019-02-08, 15:56:37]

bopilo:

our walking stick and it's

brass holders?

[2019-02-08, 16:08:31]

Ana:

Well they should be able to

ship just the stick without

the brass

[2019-02-08, 16:08:48]

Ana:

Can you tell them to ship the

stick?

[2019-02-08, 16:18:21]

Bo:

but the brass should also

be fine

[2019-02-08, 16:20:02]

Andres:

Maybe they mixed it up with

out street trash

[2019-02-08, 16:20:08]

Andres:

Our

[2019-02-08, 16:21:01]

Ana:

Maybe

[2019-02-08, 16:21:25]

Ana:

But i want the stick and the

brass holders to arrive to

stockholm

[2019-02-08, 16:21:48]

Ana:

Peter tell them that, or give

contact to negotiate arrival

[2019-02-08, 16:39:23]

Anna A:

We can ask Ayse to collect

our trash if we still want

it? (tipping point group)

[2019-02-08, 20:23:48]

Bo:

this is crazy

[2019-02-08, 20:31:19]

Carlota:

can't we find somebody coming

to Turkey?

[2019-02-08, 20:42:10]

Peter:

For the moment let's try to

get the stick

[2019-02-08, 20:43:06]

Carlota:

I would really like to have

the neon back too

[2019-02-08, 20:43:28]

Carlota:

Peter, if we find friends

who can ship it privately is

that OK?

[2019-02-08, 20:44:25]

Peter:

Ok I will try to find out

what can be done

[2019-02-08, 20:47:50]

Peter:

Here is additional info on

trsi costs

[2019-02-08, 20:47:57]

Peter:

Peter,

According to our Travel

Agency SJ offers the

following for 2 adults and 21

students with valid student

card:

Travel with SJ night train in

3-bed sleeper and recliner

6-bed coupes in 2 class

Travel from Stockholm to

Kiruna on March 24 at. 18.11,

arrival at. 9.12

The price per adult in a

sleeping car is SEK 1059 (x 3

for own coupe)

The price per student in a

recliner is SEK 834

OR

Travel from Stockholm to

Kiruna on March 25 at. 18.11,

arrival at. 9.12

The price per adult in a

sleeping car is SEK 916 (x 3

for own coupe)

The price per student in a

recliner is SEK 712

[2019-02-08, 21:07:55]

Peter:

Only problem is actually

processing payments

098

BO’S ESSENTIALS

[2019-02-09, 01:39:12]

Carlota:

Maybe we should book

individually

[2019-02-09, 14:14:30]

Bo:

is anybody going to school

today?

[2019-02-09, 14:15:22]

Bo:

my key card didn't work last

time so i need someone to let

me in later

[2019-02-10, 12:09:53]

Gustav:

I will tell you like it is.

In Sweden we dislike making

individual decisions very

much, especially when the

decisions are connected with

a higher collective purpose -

Like a group trip to Kiruna,

or if you supposed to eat

taco with the family on

fridays.

We learn this already in

"Lågstadiet".

Society is aleady full of

decisions that has to been

made and they all makes us

very tired and bored.

What most of us really want

though is a nice package to

simply say yes to. Without

knowing any details like

timestables or what type

of rosting the bean in the

coffee will have at the

collective fika. We allways

trust the organisatör and

that hen chooses whats best

for the collective.

Its the big picture that

counts and its so super nice

that 21 students and two

adults are heading north this

spring. Its amazing.

Like Rene and his warm air

ballon - an adventerous

expedition into the northern

hazard landz, roaming around

without know what to except.

So let's keep most of the

details hidden - for the

participants to discover as

a group on the train to the

mystical north. Its gonna be

a real fantasy

[2019-02-10, 14:33:30]

Orestis:

Wise Gustav

[2019-02-10, 14:39:13]

Justinas:

Lazy Gustav :) I feel we

need to give a hand for the

organizers, because we need

the proposal that is really

acceptable to everyone. If

it isnt, we all will get a

reduced version, because we

cannot leave people behind

just because of money.

Solidarity is important.

[2019-02-10, 14:39:40]

Peter:

Right! Well observed! I was

thinking of moving in that

direction anyway so if you

don't mind I will suggest

going Monday direct to Umeå.

we discovered that Monday

travel is cheaper and those

of you want to go to Kiruna

can plan on going the end of

the week., unless there are

major objections this is what

I will instruct veronika on

Monday.

[2019-02-10, 15:47:25]

Bo:

good! this leaves us kiruna

people an option to stay

there longer.

[2019-02-10, 16:06:25]

Peter:

Yes ok

[2019-02-10, 16:13:29]

Ana:

LOL! When you don't have

money problems, it is easy to

say yes to whatever plan...

#privilege

[2019-02-10, 16:15:20]

Ana:

Thanks :) SOLIDARITY should

be 2019's word

[2019-02-10, 16:16:37]

Ana:

Inclusion is recognizing each

others differences, not smack

up everyone in one bag

[2019-02-10, 16:40:51]

Gustav:

Åh, sorry. My super long text

was off course ironic, tryin

to be a funny guy. It was

maybe unclear, and I was not

a funny guy. Off course we

all have to contribute to the

trip and make it a nice one,

and also listen to everyone's

individual wishes regarding

different possibilities to

come along and so on

Monday 25th to Umeå sounds

good for me, if that now is

the plan. I do not know yet

if a can afford to go further

north to Kiruna to stay there

some extra days, but I hope

so! I really want to go there

Peter, is it still so that

the school-budget not covers

the trip back home to

Stockholm?

[2019-02-10, 16:44:09]

Gustav:

Ps: Six years ago I did a

proposal for moving Kiruna,

before White rolled out

their masterplan. Based on

increased mining activity :)

[2019-02-10, 17:53:35]

Orestis:

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

NEW KIRUNA IN THE PACIFIC♥

WHATSAPP GROUP CHAT TRANSCRIPT. FEBRUARY 2019

UMEÅ

099



WHATSAPP GROUP CHAT IMAGES. MARCH 2019

UMEÅ

101

RENEWAL & METAMORPHOSES

ENTER THE OPEN STUDIO: FÄRGFABRIKEN.

Daniel Urey and Karin Englund made it possible for us to develop

an independent Open Studio at Färgfabriken during a two week

period end of May. The Open Studio is a dedicated space that

occupies one of two side rooms on the main exhibition floor of

the Kunsthall, and is conceived by the Fargfabriken curators

as an alternative platform for public oriented activities, with

few conceptual limitations or thematic boundaries.

TEXT BY PETER LANG. IMAGES BY R-LAB GROUP

While there were some logistical challenges-we have R-lab

participants coming from five different countries and four

different Swedish cities--we could count on a year’s worth

of collective experience running workshops together, from

Istanbul to Umeå. Renewal and Metamorphosis was meant to

bring the program back around to the beginning of the Marvels

and Catastrophes cycle, to provide the kind of platform to

address a year’s worth of serious debate, hard analysis and

daring speculation.

The participant’s individual projects played significant roles

in building up the Open Studio program, providing a critical

subtext for the overall workshop. Anna Asplind’s purposeful

misalignment of city maps with anachronistic evacuation

routes, Jérôme Malpel’s ironic turn to the medieval icon in

proposing an inquisitional confessional, or Gustav Karlsson’s

exegesis on end of world tropes in his vision on Real Fantasy

fed into the gestation of daily events leading circuitously to

the great outdoors: consequently one tour around the paint

factory (Färg-fabriken translates into paint factory) divulged

culinary delights in the neighborhood of Liljholmen, while

another sought out the hidden miraculous in the mundanity

of the local.


103

Andres Villarreal’s critical inquiry using the medium of photomontage

to lay forth the crisis of capital in the throes of the

Anthropocene, Anna Risell’s meditation on the everyday,

in her attempt to stroke routine memories, or Bo Pilo’s

“transactive memory exercises,” diagrammatic algorithms to

be played across a game board were strategic in providing

diverse languages for broader public engagement.

In counter-distinction, Ana Barata went down to the industrial

banks of the paint factory to die fabrics using the crushed

pigments of local plants, Veronica Skeppe created the

characteristic paint color red seen on many Swedish houses

from the mined ore of Falun - questioning color and nationalism

- while Åsa Agerstam engaged the Swedish fixation with the

fabled Scandinavian forest through the manipulation of logs

and tree stumps. In effect, their manual based activities,

grinding colors, mixing veneers, adding liquids and tints during

the length of the Open Studio provided a buzz of constant

activity while filling the space with drapes, textiles, colors,

dyes, and other tools of the trade.

An adjacent building in this soon to be demolished industrial

park around Färgfabriken was reevaluated: Gerda Persson’s

exquisite cast models of the neighboring abandoned factory

Lövholmen, a fifties modernist gem, that houses a major

bomb shelter in its basement, or the introspective and

forensic search for water sources and their conceptual

activation within the Färfabriken Konsthall itself, conducted

by Elena Mazzi, in order to raise one’s conscious sense

of the internal intricacies of the built environment, or the

perfunctory questionnaires, designed by Sofia Larsson with

Jérôme Malpel, presented as opinion polls, posing existential

questions on the ethics of professional architectural practice,

brought our attention back to the principle question on the

moral and survival implications of building and shelter.

104



105

The space of the Open Studio also served as a shape-shifting

volume for open conversation, whether it was a slide show, an

update on coming activities, or a playspace. We were privy,

thanks to Vesna Salamon’s help, to an audio vinyl recording

from the Lithuanian performance Sun and Sea featured at the

Venice Art Biennial. Carlota Mir ran an intensive discussion

group on feminism experimenting with arpentage, a form of

collective analysis where the book in focus is cut into sections

and passed along to a group of readers who then return with

their own personal interpretations. Its a method of critically

that creates feedback through cumulatively cutting up and

patching back different interpretations to get to the most

fundamental questions.

These acts of dexterity and craftsmanship, slicing, dicing,

grinding, drawing, pasting, photographing, weaving, carving,

cooking, walking, debating and remaining silent, should be

understood as core practical skills necessary for a world we

cannot yet fathom but for which we must be prepared to

imagine. Coming together to critically think and to critically

make opens the possibility for a utopian community of helping

hands and helping heads. Going public as we did at Färgfabriken

is one of a sequence of steps necessary towards bringing

about creative change, but as we could testify working in the

Open Studio, it also is the way to work towards a greater

common cause.

***

R-lab in the coming year, 2019-2020, will no longer be associated with

the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm. Henceforth, R-Lab is R-lab N-A,

non-aligned. Information on future programming can be accessed from

this website:

www.r-lab.international


107

Färgfabriken´s Open

Studio is about exposing

the critical and creative

thinking while it is still

in flux. As a centre for

the arts, we have an

interminable interest in

the “väsen” (essence)

regarding the creative

process - what does it

OFFER us as humans

and societies? How does

it come about? How do

we capture it? What

elements do we reject

and how do we shape it?

108


The Open Studio is also about raising important, difficult and

sensitive questions on the functionality and quantification

of creative thinking and making. How much of its outcomes

needs to be functional and quantifiable? How much of its

outcomes can be as open as possible, with no clear direction

and thus becoming valuable non-outcomes in a system where

everything and everybody is evaluated? Nevertheless, Open

Studio has indeed the ambition of becoming a destination

for a beginning where the beginning’s main destination is,

as Peter Lang once remarked, a mental and physical space

for critical viewing, thinking and making. In other words,

an open horizon with the ambition of stretching beyond

institutionalised curatorial and educational patterns.

TEXT BY DANIEL UREY

Open Studio 2019 started with the artistic duo Osynliga

Teatern (the Invisible Theatre), which seeks to push the

boundaries between show, performance, and exhibition.

Then the topics of ruralism, landscapes, ceremonies,

industrial agriculture, hazardlands, planetary urbanisation

and how to become human were explored by:

• Frances Hsu + students from Texas University

Architecture Department,

• Malin Heyman and James Hamilton + students from the

KTH ABE Urbanism Studies,

• Peter Lang + students from R-LAB on Marvels and

Catastrophes,

• Performance artist Gülbuden Kulbay,

• LABLAB


109

A Lovely Suburban Fantasy Hajk

HAJK

As we left the Paint Factory the sky was full

of water but a ray of light gave us hope in our

quest. There was nothing to be eaten there so

we needed to go. A map was our only guidance

out of the premises into the wild in search of food

and shelter.

As soon as we passed the giant abandoned

cement factory, we walked along the water on

some old rusty train tracks. High grasses and

trees had slowly been taking their territories

back, and we found ourselves in a nice and lush

patch of tasty greeneries. Some of us started to

collect plants. Quickly we could check which ones

were edible or not by consulting some books and

apps we carried with us.

Urtica Dioica

[Common Nettle]

PROJECT BY GUSTAV KARLSSON, JÉRÔME MALPEL, ANNA ASPLIND

We passed the drawbridge, following a path and

found Löktrav and Spansk Körvel under an old

tree. We crossed a construction road work, and

climbed some metallic stairs to the fortress that

was hardly accessible from the ground level.

Up there on top of the rocky mountain it felt like

another world. With a fast foot we entered a

luxuriant yard with exotic species and blossoming

trees - hidden from the real world that was left

behind us. As we crossed the recreated piece

of nature, some of us found tulip sprouts and

decided that we could eat them.

A few moments later, as we reached what used to

be called the “triangle lake”, we heard screeching

noises from under a weeping willow. Two birds

were fighting for their lives.

Alliaria Petiolata

[Garlic Mustard]

Taxaxacum Officinale

[Dandelions]

FÄRGFABRIKEN OPEN STUDIO 111

Suddenly we witnessed the fatal blow, as the

more savage was winning the fight.

Ulmus Glabra

[Scotch Elm]

We quickly ran away from that threatening scene,

and found some more peace in a tranquille

meadow. The whole grass was punctuated by little

golden dots.

“Dandelions! They are so good with butter!“

Oxalis Acetosella

[Wood Sorrel]

Enchanted by the color and the abundance of the

flowers, the group scattered out to collect the

food. Some started to walk toward the forest and

as the first hikers vanished into the woods, the

last ones stayed to scoop the flowers.

At the edge of the forest, the stillness of the

meadow was taken over by a feeling of being

surveilled. The long stretch of the trees became

darker and darker, a totally new environment

settled around us. The last part of the dispersed

group that entered the forest came across a

carpet of low bushes. Among them very small

deep-purple flowers.

“Blueberries! Precious blueberry flowers

beneath the green!”

Myrrhis Odorata

[Cicely]

Alone in the scary forest, the three of us found

some recomfort by carefully picking the precious

buds. But we needed to act fast, and left the

bushes to roam towards the other side. As

the forest became steeper and steeper, the

undergrowth was more visible and we identified a

large patch of nettles. Notwithstanding the plastic

gloves we wore, the stinging hairs on the leaves

could reach our skin. Even when the acid hit us,

we couldn’t stop collecting the plants, only thinking

about the marvellous soup we could savour when

we will reach the campsite.

Syringa Vulgaris

[Lilac]

112


Once the bags were full of pricking greens, we

ran down the hill and found the rest of the team

safe and we could continue with confidence and

determination.

We decided to go across the shopping mall.

What used to be a commercial establishment

was just left out, with its primary structure and

the reminiscence of an active social space . We

climbed up the stairs to the top, and found and

exit into the sun. No traces of nature around

here, just concrete and asphalt.

Vicia Sepium

[Common Vetch]

As we walked up the hill and passed the highrises,

a deer ran away into the brambles, we

followed him. When reaching the ridgeline, the

sun started to shine again and we could see the

whole city from above - It was a marvelous view.

We decided to settle the camp. Quickly, we lit a

fire and pulled out our lovely finds. Chopped, then

cooked or grilled the beautiful plants brought us

satisfaction and warmth.

Tilia Cordata

[Small Leaved Lime]

What a richness and variety of species were to be

collected in these territories.

Soon sated and happy, we could continue our

wander with hope - as the sun was setting in the

horizon.

Rosa

[Common Rose]


114



116

117

SPIRITUAL CLEANSING

Spiritual Cleansing is a research project lead during the

Open House at Färgfabriken on May 26th 2019 (European

election’s day).

As we felt a bit scared about how the day will end with so much

uncertainty in Europe, we decided to elaborate a method to

clear out our dark thoughts.

We needed a spiritual cleansing and then decided to take this

opportunity to collect our thoughts and feelings the ones from

the people coming to the art space.

PROJECT BY JÉRÔME MALPEL & SOFIE LARSSON

The project is divided in three different stations - or steps - in

the cleansing process, as followed:

“Check your Dreams here”

A premonition bureau, where people can tell their dreams and

premonitions about potential future events and catastrophes.

“Wash your sins!”

A confession parlor where visitors can, anonymously,

confess a story or action they did or witness that turned into

catastrophes or had various consequences.

“Just do it!”

A voting booth based on decision making, conscious choices

and consequences related to it. The station proposes different

questions to put oneself in the role of architect and reflect on

the ethical struggle of the profession.


CHECK YOUR DREAMS HERE:

THE PREMONITION BUREAU

On October 21, 1966, the Welsh village of Aberfan was struck

by 110,000 cubic meters of coal mining waste after heavy

rainfall caused a tip positioned above the village to become

unstable, descending down the mountain slope in a landslide

that engulfed a primary school, a secondary school, and a

number of houses. 144 people died, 116 of them children.

In the wake of the disaster, Aberfan was visited by a psychiatrist

from the area named Dr John Barker. Struck by the tragedy

of the occurrence, Barker became convinced of the idea

that it was likely that people would have had premonitions

that something terrible was going to happen, and asked the

newspaper Evening Standard to solicit letters from readers

who had either had premonitions about the events themselves

or knew someone that had.

Dr. Barker founded the Premonitions Bureau in 1967, an

institution to which people could submit visions or dreams

that they believed to be of future events. The purpose of the

bureau, in Barker’s eyes, was two-fold: to determine how

often these things turned out to be accurate, and to act as

something of an early warning system for future disasters.

In the same matter, we took the opportunity of the Open Studio

at Färgfabriken to create a new version of the Premonition

Bureau, and edited a form to fill in people’s visions and

premonitions. Later on, we can connect those information

gathered and try to relate them with real events. What do we

learn from premonition? In an age where we can explain so

many things and science has answers to almost everything.

120


PREMONITION REPORT FORMS

#01

Report Form: I dreamt that you weren’t to be

trusted. There was a dinner and cameras. The

sound of loss through an accent. I served on

the sidelines. Fire turned into water and dust. I

am awake and calm.

Have you experienced or witnessed a

fulfilment of you precognition? Yes

If yes, could you describe it?

I was badly treated like my dreams anticipated.

When the time came I was prepared so pain

turned into an insignificant grey buss

#02

Report Form: A few years back I had a new

job and dreamt every night about death. One

dream that I still remember was very vivid and

contained dogs with chopped off legs in a red

lake. I later read that dreaming about death is

a sign of change in your life.

Have you experienced or witnessed a fulfilment

of you precognition? No

If yes, could you describe it? ---

#03

Report Form: I have had, some months ago,

and for some time, this terrible premonition

about plane crashes. At that time, my

boyfriend was travelling a lot (especially across

oceans) and every time he was leaving on a

trip I had that same anxiety coming back. Then

I was constantly checking this flight tracker

website so I would follow the flight on its route,

and strangely feel safer once it had crossed

the ocean. I would sometimes fall asleep as

the flight was still on route, and when I woke

up he would have arrived safely. The same

way, when I fly over an ocean or sea, I often

times find myself in this state between sleep

and awake, where I feel its the end and we are

going to disappear into the deep blue water.


of you precognition? No, Not Yet

If yes, could you describe it? See previous

box. When I find myself flying in order to feel

better, I read a lot about plane crashes, and

made a map of all the plane crashes in history.

Not so many in comparison to the amount of

planes flying nowadays.

#04

Report Form: - Greta Thunberg condemned

to prison for conspiracy and treason against

EU economic interest. USA and NATO attack

Iran. Race for moon and mars won by China

rings the end of occidental leadership. Greta

Thunberg is liberated after the capitalism

defeat. She becomes the symbol of the new

worlds and is prayed by thousands of followers

as the new god.

Have you experienced or witnessed a

fulfilment of you precognition? No

If yes, could you describe it? ---

#05

Report Form: I am an animal with leopard

skin. My back is hairy, dotted with leopard

spots. The leopard is dying but I am being fully

reborn. I am making love to an animal of the

same kind.


of you precognition? Yes

If yes, could you describe it? I have chosen

to be my inner self, my body has become an

organ of feeling, taste and small are stronger

than desire. I am more alive, more sensitive,

more animal.


WASH YOUR SINS

We deal with shame, remorse and each one of us carry

around a little bit of feeling of not acting right. As we are

now in a climate crisis, the anxiety rises and it is hard to

know how to act good. Every action has consequences, and

we are definitely aware of the fact that we can not live the

way we used to live if we want to remain on the Planet. The

confession parlor “Wash your sins!” is the perfect opportunity

to write down something done wrong, in order to identify the

cause.

122


CONFESSION FORMS

#01

When was the last time you confessed?

5 years ago

Confession: I flew to Amsterdam in an

aeroplane last week

Context: Inside an aeroplane 1km above the

ground heading south

Consequence: Co2 emissions into the

atmosphere, risking future generations. But

the plane would have flown anyway.

What did you learn? The system is wrong

Any regrets? No

Feeling better? Yes

#02


18 years ago (lol)

Confession: I have fallen prey to competition

with people who were supposed to be my

friends and wished bad things upon them

because they wished bad things upon me

Context: A very very distant friendship

Consequence: Guilt. More distance

What did you learn? That they’re not my

friends, but I have to get over myself too.

Any regrets? -

Feeling better? Yes

#03


Never

Confession: I’m not convinced I voted for the

“right” party today. But at least I voted and not

on what I do not agree on. I also do not like

most food, but that’s not socially accepted so I

eat it anyway and say I liked it.

Context: Political / food related

Consequence: Uncomfort

What did you learn? Do not know

Any regrets? No

Feeling better? Yes

#05


5 minutes ago

Confession:I wanted to vote yesterday. I

registered to vote in Stockholm for my country.

I missed a step. I was not able to vote. I tried

to find someone who would not vote and

convince them to vote for me. I failed. This is

the first election I miss. I feel very bad, almost

depressed.

Context: The far-right uprise in EU

Consequence: We will know tonight…

What did you learn? Check twice

Any regrets? Yes

Feeling better? Meh

#06


Almost never

Confession: I stole 3 cups from Färgfabriken

because they are beautiful

Context: Beauty

Consequence: Heart full of love and happiness

What did you learn? Just do it

Any regrets? No

Feeling better? Yes

#07


I never did before

Confession:I sometimes deliberately forget to

keep my loved ones informed about where I go

and buy myself a few days of total freedom.

Sometimes I feel guilty about it but I need the

peace of mind.

Context: Being exhausted and a will to see the

world beyond the ordinary

Consequence: None so far, but could be not

so funny some time

What did you learn? That I like white lies

Any regrets? No

Feeling better? No

#04


Way too long ago

Confession: I gossip too much

Context: The reality of our everyday life

Consequence: I wonder

What did you learn? Let’s see

Any regrets? No

Feeling better? Meh

#08


A week ago

Confession:I fell for someone else when I was

dating someone

Context: Love

Consequence:Confusion

What did you learn? Life is tough

Any regrets? Yes

Feeling better? Yes


JUST DO IT:

IF YOU WERE AN ARCHITECT

Playing station on architecture and ethics. The construction

station is a role play game based on decision making and

understanding of consequences from one action. The station

proposes different questions to put oneself in the role of an

architect and reflect on the ethical struggle of the profession.

Starting with “if you were an architect would you...?” and

statements such as “...draw an uncomfortable bench for a

train station?, “...draw a nuclear power plant?” etc. We are

dealing with so many decisions to be made with sometimes

dramatic consequences, what if the best decision would be

not to do anything?

1. The Demolition Situation

You get called up by a client about a new project which has these super

cool park features and you say yes immediately out of joy and a flattered

ego. At the start up meeting you realise this new building will be built on

the grounds of an already existing building facing demolition.

QUIT DESIGN PUSH IT

When the project is presented you ask neutrally in front of everyone why

the old building is being torn down. Your client laughs uncomfortably and

states that it’s not modern enough to work on today’s market.

QUIT DESIGN PUSH IT

After a questioning glance the client says they

did a conservation proposal but that it didn’t

turn out in favour of the old building. You ask

why again and the other fourteen consultants

move around in their chairs out of nervousness

and ideas of relevant questions

You go back to the office and vacuum the

internet for information on the building’s

ecological footprint and put together a folder

in InDesign that explains why tearing down

existing buildings is bad for the environment.

You send it as an email to your client. Your

boss finds out.

QUIT

DESIGN

QUIT

124


2. The Soil Situation

Your company has been running low for a while and you fear recession is

dawning. An old client calls you up and offers you to draw a masterplan

for an amazing new ecological area built on a field with top class soil for

food production

QUIT DESIGN PUSH IT

Since you know farm land is a non-renewable resource and that the

country only produces half of it’s necessary food supply you feel a bit

uneasy about the project and ask for some time to think the project

through.

You come to think of the fact that one of your employees is having a

baby in two months and another one just moved into a new apartment

and is deeply indebted. At night you dream vividly about baby bird heads

popping up and down squeaking to be fed worms. You roll around like

this until dawn before getting up and writing an answer to the client.

QUIT

DESIGN

3. The Stadium Situation

You win an international commission to design a spectacular Olympic

stadium arean in a country with dubious human rights

When the win hits the news the press starts calling you up. The

journalist asks about your thoughts on workers rights, the country’s low

scores from the Humans Rights Watch, slippery ethics and your role in

taking the project.

QUIT DESIGN PUSH IT

You answer like Steven

Hill that your position

as an architect is

to work in the spirit

of international

civilisation

You mention fleetingly

like Rem Koolhaas

that censorship in China

might as well be a

long gone memory in

fifteen years but that

the state television

building will remain

You say like Zaha

Hadid that it’s not an

architects duty to take

care of the issue that

700 migrant workers

die while building your

spots centre.

You argue like Jaques

Herzog that your stadium

has the potential

to radically transform

society and that engaging

is the best way

to have impact

DESIGN

DESIGN

DESIGN

DESIGN


A CARTOGRAPHY OF

THE ANTHROPOCENE

PROJECT BY ANDRES VILLARREAL In the current historical moment we witness an immense increase in so-called climate angst

in conjunction with climate crisis awareness, yet people feel a lack of any fruitful means of

combating it. What are the current outlets for this great force of anxiety and will to action and

are they the right ones? Can capital be seen? How do you map the unmappable and is it possible

to make the mesh of invisible global power structures, networks and flows of capital visible or

imagined? What are the individual components that comprise the issue of climate change? A

cognitive map of the so-called Age of Humans.

127


[2019-05-20, 19:38:12]

Bo:

i added it now.

[2019-05-20, 19:38:58]

Matthew:

Cool

[2019-05-20, 19:39:18]

Bo:

it's huge

[2019-05-20, 19:39:34]

Matthew:

Haha, I'm sure it is

[2019-05-20, 19:39:43]

Bo: i didn't include media.

[2019-05-20, 19:39:51]

Matthew:

I'll see what I can do with

it

[2019-05-20, 19:46:31]

Bo:

oh this is the public chat

[2019-05-20, 20:00:44]

Carlota:

[2019-05-20, 20:01:21]

Carlota:

Kudos to being twelve again

[2019-05-20, 20:08:36]

Matthew:

Hahaha

[2019-05-20, 20:35:26]

Bo:

hahaha!

[2019-05-20, 21:27:06]

Justinas:

phew, I'm almost back with

you. Sorry for dropping out

so long. Coming on friday,

eager to help any team. If

any luck, will stay with you

untill 2nd june.

[2019-05-20, 21:29:05]

Bo:

welcome back!

[2019-05-20, 21:30:27]

Lea:

Same here! I'm in stockholm

from today till the 1st. Next

two days around the school

and from Thursday see you all

at Fargfabriken

[2019-05-20, 21:34:28]

Matthew:

The whatsapp chat is

fantastic

[2019-05-20, 21:35:26]

Matthew:

It will be an interesting

minor narrative running

through the book

[2019-05-20, 21:37:06]

Matthew:

I found some great old school

computer fonts as well, so it

will look like the text on a

shopping receipt

[2019-05-20, 21:38:23]

Andres:

This chat is mind blowing in

all kinds of ways

[2019-05-20, 21:39:37]

Matthew:

I've only just read the first

few lines, but there is

already so much going on

[2019-05-20, 21:43:49]

Bo:

brilliant!

[2019-05-20, 21:58:44]

Vesna:

Can't wait for next episode

[2019-05-20, 22:08:39]

Jerome:

The layout and font are so

great too!!

[2019-05-21, 00:20:17]

Ana:

Hahah when you guys almost

reported my disappearance to

the police

[2019-05-21, 00:20:25]

Ana:

I think i was taking a nap

[2019-05-21, 08:03:37]

Ana:

Should we edit the Facebook

event?

[2019-05-21, 08:04:32]

Ana:

Like change pic, write open

studio in the title, and

write everybody names in the

beginning of the text?

[2019-05-21, 08:05:07]

Ana:

Cause many people won't

scroll that down

[2019-05-21, 08:06:11]

Ana:

Also are we printing posters?

[2019-05-21, 08:07:18]

Anna A:

Go for it!

[2019-05-21, 08:45:21]

Andres:

I think title is fine as

it is

[2019-05-21, 17:20:11]

Peter:

Are any of you going to the

graduation ceremony at the

Artakemie Thursday at 15:00?

I'm not sure I'll arrive on

time but if someone is going

ill find out if they are

handing out certificates

[2019-05-21, 18:10:04]

Ana:

Who has work that will be

exhibited in the open studio

space?

[2019-05-21, 18:10:35]

Ana:

We are going to make an event

that bettet articulate the

exhibition part of the open

studio

128

BO’S ESSENTIALS

[2019-05-21, 18:17:09]

Anna A:

Just make sure the events are

well conected to eachother,

people will get super

confused. But it's too much

text as it is now.

The list of people exhibiting

stuff throughout the week is

in the fb-event and schedule.

[2019-05-21, 18:17:36]

Anna A:

Are you doing another list

now? Why?

[2019-05-21, 18:18:47]

Andres:

We can link to it within that

event too

[2019-05-21, 18:19:39]

Bo:

are you making two different

fb events?

[2019-05-21, 18:19:49]

Andres:

In the fb event its ambigous

and not so clear its also

mixed

[2019-05-21, 18:19:56]

Anna A:

It seams like it...

[2019-05-21, 18:20:00]

Andres:

Everyone were doing

individual events anyway

[2019-05-21, 18:20:08]

Andres:

There are like 6 of them

already

[2019-05-21, 18:20:19]

Bo:

for what purpose?

[2019-05-21, 18:20:27]

Andres:

I dont know but people did

[2019-05-21, 18:20:39]

Andres:

For people to know whats

going on

[2019-05-21, 18:20:53]

Andres:

People are asking how what

when to come, for purpose of

clarity

[2019-05-21, 18:21:11]

Ana:

We should have a an opening

day and hour for the

exhibition part of the

program too. That's why it

would be useful to add an

event for that

[2019-05-21, 18:21:46]

Bo:

sums up facebook perfectly

[2019-05-21, 18:22:46]

Andres:

It makes same sense or even

more sense than individual

events that everyone did, so

shouldnt be a problem to make

a clear joint event right

[2019-05-21, 18:24:13]

Anna R:

Could we make the existing

event clearer? I thought that

was the joint event?

[2019-05-21, 18:25:09]

Ana:

But you did your own event

already

[2019-05-21, 18:27:45]

Anna A:

It's different to make an

individual event to share

specific info about that

happening than to split the

whole group into two events.

Maybe someone could try to

give the event some love and

time to make it better. Only

titels? No info for exempel.

And then links could be added

with more info about the

specific projects.

[2019-05-21, 18:28:04]

Anna A: I agree that it is

weird not to have one place

with all info..

[2019-05-21, 18:28:30]

Anna A: At least at one

place.. maybe R-Lab blog is

better. I dont know.

[2019-05-21, 18:29:24]

Ana: The people exhibiting

or having objects in the

space, lets meet on Thrusday

at 11 am at fargfabriken

and discuss it live. If you

cannot join we can do skype!

[2019-05-21, 18:30:35]

Bo:

i work then

[2019-05-21, 18:31:49]

Andres:

I didnt do an individual

event because that just

seems more weird imo but the

current event is confusing,

we will look at it now and

see what can be changed

[2019-05-21, 18:34:10]

Bo:

is anyone there tomorrow

afternoon?

[2019-05-21, 18:36:10]

Anna A: But if the thing

needs some explenation and

more text is out of the

question it is not weird to

have a link to more info on

the jointpage, if that is to

another event or individual

blog or whatever. But to

split the event in two is

weird. Hahaha, ok just

different views on what is

weird and not

[2019-05-21, 18:37:24]

Andres:

No one said splitting

anything

WHATSAPP GROUP CHAT TRANSCRIPT. MAY 2019

STOCKHOLM 129


130

BO’S ESSENTIALS

WHATSAPP GROUP CHAT IMAGES. MAY 2019

STOCKHOLM

131

Woman, Native, Other:

Making Friends with Trinh

T Minh Ha

This arpentage workshop considered

doing research and practicing

friendship in public as a political

act. We aimed to explore friendship

as a lived condition, wherein one

befriends ideas and issues as well

as people, and which has its own

responsibilities and demands. We

also wanted to bring attention to the

issue that knowledge production is

always situated and it is always the

result of a series of interactions and

inspirations between people, not the

work of a single author. Focusing

on decolonial feminisms and the

power of form and structure, we all

met Trinh T. Minh-ha’s seminal book

‘Woman, Native, Other: Writing

Postcoloniality and Feminism’.

We explicitly banned any type of

sound recording to the enable

intimacy and freedom of the

participants. Instead, a live text was

produced alongside the session,

our words, thoughts and questions

chorally woven together alongside

Minh-ha’s.

What’s an arpentage?

Arpentage is a tactic of collective

reading and annotation that has its

origins in popular culture. it consists

ARPENTAGE

of chopping up a book, reading it

together and reassembling it through

voice and interaction. The story has

it that it was developed by factory

workers in the newly industrialised

France, who wanted to read Marx’s

Kapital and become emancipated

– but simply didn’t have the time.

Today, we may be living in another

kind of immaterial factory- yet, like

our factory worker counterparts,

as cultural workers (projectarians?)

working under the rhythms of

constant deadlines, accelerated

capitalism and exhausting affective

labour, we simply do not have the

time, either. We are constantly

asked to produce and reproduce, to

smile and continue, no matter the

topic. But how to cope? Through

this session, we ask ourselves: could

chopping up a book, reading it bit by

bit, and understanding it through

everybody else’s eyes make some

sort of change?

Participants: Anna Jakobsson,

Matthew Ashton, Lea Vene, Vesna

Rohacek, Orestis Nikolaidis, Peter

Lang, Juanma González, Anamaya

Farthing-Kohl, Ana Barata Martins,

Andrés Villareal

PROJECT BY CARLOTA MIR (WITH ENRICO FLORIDDIA)

1. Image: Orestis Nikolaidis

PROJECTS 133

A live text by Carlota Mir

31.05.2019

1. Conversations held in the

minutes previous to meeting Trinh

T Minh Ha

Feelings, models, not fitting, class

Difficulty to categorise

Realising your heterosexuality

before preschool

I asked her out and she said no

We were two years old

Being a woman and queer versus

being white and middle-class

Speaking English and not being

asked

Not being asked as a tool

Not passing as white for the

first time in Sweden

Controls in the metro in France, it's

usually racialised people who get

checked

Talking about all the categories is

difficult

Not fitting in the categories,

primary school

The Colonial past of Australia,

history is written by the winners, by

those in power

We are both male and white, we

are all white

Moving to Spain, meeting feminism,

looking back on your childhood

experiences and reading them in a

different way

The power of jokes, banter and the

discomfort of positioning myself at

either ends of the spectrum

2 – Making Friends with Trinh T

Minh Ha

Story

Consciousness rising

I will tell you something, stories

are everything we have

How does the west look at other

nations?

I’m tired of being blamed for my

ancestors mistakes

But you should be blamed

because blood became your

privilege

How do we deal with that guilt?

Guilt responsibility

Being an author as a woman of

colour one must learn to forget

one's self

The minorities voice is always

personal, the authorities voice is

always impersonal

The illusion of a single message

Her sense of the story overflows

the boundaries of patriarchal time

and truth

How do we write from the womb?

Childbirth and writing

Writing as bodily feelings

Links between writing and

translation as a female process of

writing

134

CARLOTA MIR

Men don’t translate they create,

translation must be seamless it

must be invisible just like social

reproduction

Translation, metamorphosis and

changed meanings

What is the role of the image

breaking down the binary in the

image disruption editing duration.

She is using ideas about film in the

process of book writing, translating

film into writing

This has nothing to do with the

book, it's something that came

to mind on foot on horseback on

motorbike

Watch waiting how do you position

your body?

The right to interfere, to change the

imposed choreographies

Which kind of gestures are we

forced to choreograph as people?

How are we oppressed and how do

we meet?

Vietnamese squatters free bench

who tells the story?

What constitutes these early

storytelling origins?

There could be memories of women

Of course the child's story

represents fantasy and the adult

manipulates the story for the child

to understand the world they live in

Sexual parts where stories

originate in the mouth or in the

ears

Sexual organs and organs of

transmission

Weaving stories

Witching figures and the woman

as warrior

The story will happen that's

ominous but you can't stop the

story from being told

Tongue tie in order to not be tongue

tied they cut your tongue in order to

untie it and tell a story

Refuse well-behaved writing

following the norms

Stone language art of the

masses

How is writing architecture or art

liberating and how do we follow

norms in order to be recognised?

The guilt, women are being

described as thieves

Being able to read or write for a

woman equals to stealing a man's

culture, his comfort discomfort and

guilt in order to be heard

The feminine as feeling not as

rationality

Words and bodily function

Closure and openness are one

ongoing process

We do not have bodies, we are

our bodies

Validating feeling death, like life, is a

process

The author is created through the

text

PROJECTS 135

The story that tells the story

Language and difference and thirdworld

women

What is your motivation for

reading this book?

Difference as a mutual responsibility

Ideologies of separation

Does a genderless society

reproduce unidirectional

patterns?

Reproducing gender, reproducing

sex as convenient mythologies

convenient for imperialist societies

Reproducing gender norms

as cultural preservation and

preservation of virtuosity

The house is a place where

culture can exist outside of

capitalism, or is it really?

Perhaps you are not a woman

otherwise you will know the latter to

be false

Fear of losing use of language

Losing and winning, loss of privilege

through language as transformation

An idea is a concentric universe

You become one or another

Story-writing becomes history

where does truth come into it?

Kinship.Silence as a refusal to

partake in the story

My silence goes unheard, unnoticed

what should we do?

I don't want to be part of this way

of telling a story and writing history

anymore

Personal experience of silence as a

salutary lesson

Silence as a form of action

Why is silence not brave?

Do the masses become masses by

themselves or are they the result of

a theoretical and practical operation

of massification?

How do we practice that active

silence?

Silence and listening is an active

practice for men who want to be

feminists

We need to make a network of

people who practice active silence

Silence as trauma we need silence

We are talking so much when you

are silent it speaks, when you speak

it is silent

On how to make something

speak without speaking yourself

Reducing the male ego of the

author is finding a way for the text

to speak without the author

Can the text ever be separated

from the ego of the author?

A lot of voices are so tiny that we

don't hear them, how do we make

space for the little voices?

We are currently responsible for

making society, how do we amplify

these little spaces?

How do these voices take place?

There are these stories that need

136

CARLOTA MIR

2. Image: Peter Lang

to be told in the same way the wind

goes blowing across the mesa

One of the most political things a

white male can do is be silent.This

is a beautiful act of making space

Silence doesn't mean you're not

listening

What would happen if we all

stopped talking? we would hear

thousands of things?

The choir is where everybody sings

together

I should shut up more and that's

clear active listening is a meaningful

practice

Silence as things that are

impossible to talk about

How to talk about the

impossible?

PROJECTS 137

12.56

Pursuing perfection, swimming laps, counting them.

Nothing will happen.

PROJECT BY VICTORIA VAN KAN

The following series of photographs were

taken from Umeå’s central swimming pool,

Navet (The Hub). The pool is located along

the central axis of the city, one block away

from the Utopia shopping mall and aligned

with the main bus station. It functions as an

indispensable public space for the city.

PROJECTS 139

144 VICTORIA VAN KAN

PROJECTS

145

FOR THE FIRST TIME

OUR WORLD 1

What it takes is to let go. To let go and rely on the one thing

one can know for certain: that time is constantly passing,

a continuum that does not let itself be stopped by either

burdensome pasts or anxiogenic predictions of the future.

To let go is not equal to become passive and listless. To

let go is to be receptive. To pay attention and be aware of

one’s surroundings. Aware of impressions from the present

as they meld with previous experiences. The direct material

surroundings are transformed through the amalgam with

memories into an imaginary image. The individual experience

is unique, and the encounter between one’s self and the world

is finely-tuned through imagination. It offers the possibility of

dwelling poetically 2 as well as experiencing the world as if

for the first time 3 . My study has been an immersive one,

where I have let myself submerge into the depths of poetic

imagination – poetic reverie. What I search lies deep down.

Embedded and over-layered. But to actively search is futile; to

focus makes the goal slip away.

There is a poetic quality to being in the world. Possibly a basic

trait to our being, though one that is easily neglected. Given

that basic needs for survival and living are covered, it should

not cause controversy to regard it as a potential key to wellbeing.

Our being in the world is a dynamic relationship between

our surroundings, spaces and perpetually changing societies.

It is a constant maneuvering of perception, the handling of

stimuli, the composition of perceptions of direct surroundings

with memories of the past, shaping the movement into the

unpredictable future.

1. Bachelard, G. The Poetics of Space (New York: Penguin Books, 1958)

2. The text ’Poetically Man Dwells’ by Martin Heidegger was first presented in a lecture in 1951.

3. Bachelard, G. The Poetics of Space (New York: Penguin Books, 1958)

PROJECT BY ANNA RISELL

I have turned to daydreaming as to find a mode through

which one could find clues to future scenarios. Daydreaming

PROJECTS

147

4. Pallasmaa, J. The Architecture of Image – Existential Space in Cinema (Helsinki: Rakennustieto Publishing, 2007)

5. Ibid

– reverie – as a state of presence where one allows oneself

to submerge through layers of space, to fall back into

memory, and to access the multi-fold of a certain place. I have

investigated reverie as a means of seeking out the marvelous

in everyday life, as a means of emancipating imagination 4 . An

investigation of poetic images to stir our sense of being in the

world and in relation to visions of the future. I have tested it

as an antidote to images of catastrophe, a way of responding

to crisis without generating more crisis.

Sensitizing the Boundary Between Ourselves and the World 5

The room has two windows. The ventilating system of the

building is wrecked, making it impossible to keep the openings

of the room shut. Both of the windows are kept ajar, through

them not only fresh air flows, but also sounds of the vicinity

seeps in. An industrial area, rusty and run down, the near-by

water attracts seabirds and a breeze. In occasional ruptures

the exterior enters the room.

The room houses a video piece, one among several other

installations. The piece is a composition of sequences of moving

images, and it has served as a means of investigating the

experience and perception of everyday places as a source for

poetic reverie. The quest is performed through a condensed

stream of recurring images, each the foundation of a unique

experience. The compact sequence of more or less apart –

nevertheless familiar – images are in this sense encouraging

new, unexpected scenes to appear in the spectators mind.

The images appear along with the concrete sound of the

places they represent. Gradually several soundscapes

are over-layered, and ultimately also the visual images are

fused. An extreme version of the ordinary. The composition

intermingling with the images invites to look beyond the

apparent, to be attuned to our expanded awareness, bringing

forth a new world. Brought together, these images and sounds

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suggests the inherent source of daydreaming in ordinary

places, open to inhabiting and imagination. An appreciation

of the presence of remembered places is significant for the

perception of the present one. A sound, a scent, a shape in

the present triggers a perhaps long lost memory of a place.

These perceptions and associations accompanies the space

I presently experience and composes a whole experience and

atmosphere. I carry this sensation with me, thus shaping the

way in which I connect to that particular place, how I receive

places to come, as well as how I envisage the future.

Back in the room. One condition for the installations within

the room, is the presence and the closeness to one another.

The reception of the video is thus altered depending on the

interaction with the rest of the space; a remarkable and

unavoidable factor, where an unpredictable outcome is the

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only certain aspect. Thus, the piece receives an additional

layer from the room itself and its elements. Movements and

developments in the other installations are noticed within the

sphere of the video piece, in a positive way. Furthermore, a

big white tarp is supporting the video; a figure hard to pass

by without noticing. The tarp also features a performative

quality of being foldable, reshapeable, movable, stowable. For

that reason, interaction with the tarp is encouraged by me.

Although, since the material is sounding, it entails a particular

resistance. By handling the tarp, the room as well as the

video piece receive a distinct additional layer of sound. In its

presence, the tarp has a capacity to create a rupture in the

space. A familiar structure introduced to a new context, its

meaning and purpose altered accordingly. A rupture that

halts the visitor, presenting her to something irrational and

imperfect, activating her imagination. Inviting her to search

within, and through imagination create a complete experience

of the video, and not least, the room.

In Defense of Felicitous Space

In an otherwise changing world, the repetition of the

quotidian and its recurring nature gives a sense of security

and predictability. The stratum of functions and uses of the

built environment tells a story of what has been, and at the

same time, it indicates the place’s ability to evolve over time,

to not get stuck, outdated and useless. To let an existing

structure remain as the foundation for the next, to let new

talents inhabit the place, to perceive transition as grounding.

Traces of the former provides the present with a sense of

continuity and rootedness, a paradoxical relationship of

simultaneous development and permanence. Contradictions

rests in the interconnections, the irrational, although obvious.

An irrationality that invites imagination to root, and triggers

the dreaming mind. A dynamic that make up for the quotidian

to become the foundation for the extraordinary.

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ANNA RISELL

To surrealist Robert Desnos ‘the marvelous is the supreme

goal of the human mind’. He approaches the ordinary physical

structures that surround us in our everyday lives as a source

which he could tap into in order to seize the traces of the

historical unconscious of the cityscape. Within the layers of

the spaces of Marais, Paris, he encounters the echoes of its

former inhabitants, which fused with his unconscious mind

serve his listeners and readers with marvels and awe. 6

“If I walk here at night,

at night in these streets,

I hear the people –

it feels like you can hear the people

who walked here, perhaps in the ‘20s, ‘30s,

and even longer back.” 7

This depiction is given by an inhabitant in 1980’s Haga,

Gothenburg. It promotes a similar sense of connection as in

the works of Desnos, suggesting the human value of space

that may be grasped, which people unite in defense of. Haga

being one of the city districts in Gothenburg that during the

sixties and seventies were partly or completely demolished

as a result of the urban renewal paradigm of that time. The

force of industrialization and the insensitivity of modernist

master plans to human subtleties did not perceive the past

inhabitants voices recorded in the façades. The image of

poverty, overcrowding, and sanitary standards reminding of

the 19th century were according to Sven Markelius and his

fellows to be conquered. 8 Conquered through obliteration

of its built structures. Such were the policies towards a

welfare state in which any physical trace of poor working

class conditions were assumed to assassinate visions of a

prosperous future. An approach in complete opposition to

the richness of meaning 9 that is created through successive

over-layering.

6. Jourwalis. (2014, December 13). Haga – Stadsdel i förvandling [Video File]. Retrieved from www.youtube.com

7. Conley, K. Robert Desnos, Surrealism, and the Marvelous of Everyday Life. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003)

8. Asplund, G., Gahn, W., Markelius, S., Paulsson, G., Sundahl, E., Åhrén, U. Acceptera (Stockholm: Tidens förlag, 1931)

9. Venturi, R. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. Second edition. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1977)

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10. Bachelard, G. The Poetics of Reverie. Childhood, Language and the Cosmos (Boston: Beacon Press, 1960)

For the World of Worlds 10

Different times and tendencies are embodied in the built and

shaped; this allows one to read the generation of the place up

until the present, to understand society, to understand one’s

own development. Gaps and unexpected connections interrupt

our stride and invite imagination to take root. What creates

the image of the built, to a high degree consists of invisible

components. Social relations, meanderings of society, much

more, have an impact. Openness to change does not oppose

rootedness in the past; it is rather motivated by it. To put the

present in relation to what has been gives an understanding of

the continuum we exist in. I have searched within the ordinary

to find places which inspire daydreaming. A search in which I

have regarded an active perception of space as fundamental

for reverie. This has opened up for seemingly insignificant

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places to hold treasures of poetic imagery, and conditions

for hopeful atmospheres. Ordinary places, the backdrop of

the quotidian, leaves us conscious or unconscious of their

sensory and mental impact on us. Upon returning, each time

is a different experience, changing with the reverberations of

previous encounters of that particular place, or other, lingering

still. Thus, the moment of returning could be perceived as the

multi-layered result of several events and images, building up

for the creation of daydreams of possible future realities. Our

presence and perception being the interstitching medium.

Being sensitive to stimuli through this continuous presence

in space, creates conditions for one to build rapport with a

place. We appreciate ourselves as part of that space, thus

finding strength to defend it against adverse forces, motivated

by causes beyond physical appearance.

Turning to daydreaming, and encouraging the activation of

the imaginative mind, might seem a subtle act. This act is

rooted in a reaction to the time we live in, when reports of

the present and forecasts of the future strike a bleak tone.

I turn to daydreaming as a means of not getting caught in

a sense of despair. By doing this – not falling into passivity

or ignorance – I rather search for remedy and the key to

envisage a positive continuation to the way we live now. Or

be it to the aftermath of the probable disaster catastrophe

collapse, somehow paradigm shifting event, that might occur,

and fundamentally change our society as we know it.

***

Images: Stills from “For the First Time Our World” (2019), 12’44”

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21ST CENTURY ICON

Myths take their origins from what humans cannot explain. In

the late 50s, Roland Barthes tried to define modern myths in

an industrialized society less dominated by religion. He found

modern myths in narratives of everything from technological

development and red wine to wrestling and Einstein’s

brain. What if Roland Barthes would have written his book

Mythologies in the age of the internet?

PROJECT BY JÉRÔME MALPEL

After visiting the fascinating Museum of Cosmonautics in

Moscow, I couldn’t stop wondering, how does a country build

its own mythology, almost from scratch, leaving aside old

beliefs and religions, to put all faith into science and space

exploration?

The Soviet cosmonaut became a modern hero in the 1930s.

As the communist regime promoted state atheism, the

cosmonaut replaced the angel as a Christmas tree decoration

and the star of Bethlehem was swapped for the red communist

star at the top of the tree. Proudly, people would decorate

their homes in homage of the men and women, elevating the

country by making it into space. The popularity of the space

themed Christmas decorations reached a high point during

the cold war era of the 1960s and 1970s.

In 1959, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev visited a corn

farm in America, he was so impressed by the production of

corn that he brought home some knowledge from the collective

farms of Iowa to start rebuilding the farming communities in

the Soviet Union.

1, (Opposite) Proposal for an icon

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Back home, the communist regime had faced some

uncertainties as the development models in place since Stalin

were showing some limits, and had started a long period of

stagnation. Khrushchev needed symbols for the people to

believe in a brighter future, so the corncob became a symbol

of the Soviet economy trying to reconstruct itself.

Naturally, it also became a Christmas tree ornament next

to the heroic cosmonaut. The corncob and other symbols of

agriculture are also visible on building ornaments, such as

the Pavilion of Agriculture in the All-Russia Exhibition Centre in

Moscow, just next to The Museum of Cosmonautics.

Is it precisely when a society is heading towards uncertainty

that it needs to build up a new form of belief system? Do we

need to be reassured that everything is alright by a selection

of imagery and visual content?

The religious icon has traditionally been a way to visualize

Christian mythologies. As an experiment, I wanted to explore

what a modern day icon could look like. We document, edit,

share, and react to visual content all day long. What is the

visual material that would be able to tell the myths of an era

where images are at the very center of our culture? Together

with the visitors at Färgfabriken, I wanted to create an image

that uses the traditional codes of the religious icon but with

a reinvented content. During the Open Studio exhibition, an

interactive workshop was presented to the public to create an

icon for the 21st century. Pinned to a board on the wall was

an A1 size image forming a base for the icon. The participants

were invited to place visual elements printed out from Time

Magazine.

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JÉRÔME MALPEL

2.The Museum of Cosmonautics.

(May 2019)

3. Picture of a cosmonaut Christmas tree

ornament.

4. Detail of a facade in the All Russian

exhibition center, pavilion of agriculture.

(May 2019)

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5B.

5C.

5A.

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JÉRÔME MALPEL

5D. 5E.

5. Elements for the background

A satellite picture of the eye of Hurricane Florence (5D) is the first element on the bottom.

Above it, a landscape taken from the latest picture of Mars from the Nasa (5A) is distorted to

create two vanishing points outside the image. Flying over, two different views of the planet Mars,

seen from a telescope (5C). A plan of a shelter for billionaires (5E) is set in the center, with its

large swimming pool and wine cellars. The background texture comes from an old map of the

Tolbachinski volcano in the Kamchatka peninsula (5B), edited in 1952 in USSR.

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Each year, Time Magazine publishes a list of the 25 best

inventions from new technologies and everyday objects, but

also strange and random things intended to make the world

better, or at least easier. The magazine also publishes the

list of the most influential people of the year, in other words,

our contemporary heroes. What if we use the heroes and

inventions of our time as visual elements for an icon in order

to reflect on our current belief system?

By an act of “re-medievalization”, several scenarios could be

depicted and freely evolve along the two weeks of the Open

studio. In the end, the icon illustrated a vision of our world,

where our heroes and villains punctuate our everyday life with

stories, dreams and actions.

The new image uses the traditional codes of the religious

icon:

• Use of reverse perspectives; to bring the focus to the

center of the image where the key event is displayed and

highlighted

• Composition structured under an arc in the lower middle

part, from the Earthly world to the Heavens on the top.

• Events freely displayed that can be simultaneously

represented and interpreted (death, ascension, grieving…)

• Use of gold color in the background.

***

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JÉRÔME MALPEL

6. Icon of the Last Judgment

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The blessed cultural ages of eternity

“Happy Times!”

THE PAST

THE FUTURE

Dark apocalyptic ages

“We´re all gona die!”

THE WAVE OF REAL FANTASY

“In altered states of consciousness this new perception of

the world becomes dominant and compelling. It completely

overrides the everyday illusion of Newtonian reality, where

we seem to be “skin-encapsulated egos” existing in a world

of separate beings and objects”

PROJECT BY GUSTAV KARLSSON

– Stanislav Grof, The Holotropic Mind 1

There have of course been “happy” and optimistic periods

between the darker ages in human history. Hunter-gatherers,

for instance, were probably never worrying about tomorrow.

Most likely they enjoyed life one hundred percent carpe diem

- finding meaning through nut-gathering and in a big variety of

now forgotten ascetic lifestyles. It’s easy to admit it’s a little

sad that those happy times are gone, never to come back.

But also since we started to spend more time thinking of

the future there’s been periods with strong belief in eternal

progress (as today within certain bubbles in some parts of the

physical and digital world). As soon as myths about apocalypse

decreased in popularity myths about eternal growth have

taken its place. It’s somehow easy to ignore these periods of

pure optimism, regardless of whether the future later told us

that the happiness was well founded or not – felt feelings are

real when they are felt no matter what. This insight gives us

an opportunity to simply zoom out and disconnect from our

individual conceptions and assess whether these conceptions

are confirmed through feelings evoked by science or if they

just are fantasies.

What remains when the peeling process is over is a real

feeling, felt in the present moment - based on a notion that

1. Stanislav Grof The Holotropic Mind (San Francisco: Harper, 1993). pp.91

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space (and the perception of the same) seems to change

over time (namaste). Depending on purpose these nice

experiences of perceptual moments contribute by influencing

worldviews as more or less optimistic. This volatile evaluation

in perception occurs regardless of which mixture of facts

and fantasies the conceptions sprout from - so does the

consequences the conceptions have on the physical and

psychological whole – here and there, in the past, present

and future. These real and readable consequences color

at the same time the perception of the same realities they

render from, which makes the balance of reality and fantasy

also disrupt and morph into a wobbly green wave of slime - it´s

a nice complex metaphysical confusion.

Stanislav Grof The Holotropic Mind (San Francisco: Harper, 1993). pp.5

In the Newtonian world - the perceptual process of evoking

feelings from conceptions (or the other way around) is

very much an individual process within one single person’s

forehead, if you look at the experience from a scientific or

clinical point of view. But like the Czech psychiatrist Stanislav

Grof puts it in his book The Holotropic Mind - “Up to now,

Newtonian science has been responsible for creating a very

limited view of human beings and their potentials” 2 - the

old modern Newtonian way of perceiving could also be a

perceptual paradigm actually preventing the bright futures

of the collective from dispersing the dark apocalyptic cloud

on the horizon(!) Taking a non-collectivist perspective on

consciousness is difficult, even though we’re living in the

most individualistic of times. It’s maybe not even possible or

necessary to make a separation, since human beings have

always been a social creature interacting with one another –

thinking and learning collectively through cultures and shared

dreams (of which the Internet is a distinct example). With this

said - still the opposite as influence from one single person’s

conceptions of the bigger whole is not to be neglected, think

of Gandhi or Greta Thunberg for instance.

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GUSTAV KARLSSON

Philosophies and belief systems that somehow deal with

mythologies associated with concepts similar to a collective

consciousness go way back across all human history. With a

concentration towards eastern traditions where concepts of

the individual soul as part of a bigger whole influence all aspects

of life. To give a fair abstract on this topic, and to also put it

in a context of western urban design traditions, would result

in not just one but several books, so I stop there for now. The

term “collective consciousness” though was first coined from

a modern western perspective by the French sociologist and

philosopher Émile Durkheim in his book The Division of Labour

in Society (1893). 3 It has been argued whether perception or

consciousness is the best word to use, since the French word

conscience means both “consciousness” and “perception” 4 .

Regardless which one is the most suitable to use in this text

(I try to use both equally often) - since Durkheim (among other

social thinkers at the time, Marx for instance) sociology has

evolved into a broad range of mythologies which all somehow

work within a framework that embraced the idea of the

collective.

Regardless of which methodology we use for visualizing the

complexity of evolving social and cultural phenomenon - The

more individuals added to the field of view, the clearer the

tendency and importance of a single collective consciousness

appear. Another important emphasizer than quantity is time,

the more we zoom out over a long period of time, the more

each single individual disappears in the midst of the crowd he

or she belongs to. This collective perception can be illustrated

as a waveform with the feeling concerning the big question of

where we’re heading oscillating over time.

On one hand the collective has an optimistic and strong belief in

eternal development and progress, and on the other hand the

overall view is a feeling of depression and despair - associated

with dark and apocalyptic ages. The tension between the two

3. Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society (First published in 1893)

4. Wikipedia on Collective consciousness. (Accessed 2019) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_consciousness

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feelings associated with the two main beliefs (that also are

the two main axes) - optimism & pessimism – unfolds a wavy

shape as time floats by – The Wave of Real Fantasy.

The “real” part of the wave is conceptions based on actual

measured data of what the major collective understand as

real facts or truths – such as knowledge from measured

emissions from greenhouse gases, the polar ice that melts,

the increasing number of people suffering from stress-related

diseases, democracy failing and so on. The fantasy part

of the wave is based on the collective interpretation of the

same “real” data - at the same time as it also shapes the

conceptions of the “real” data - as expressed through myths,

rituals and dreams etc. The wave points out a forecast,

a direction of either up or down. The two waves coexist

and reinforce each other - containing billions of individual

perspectives, dreams, memories and conceptions as part of

the whole. The wave seems to oscillate regardless even of

how accurate a future prediction turned out to be in the end.

The Internet’s emphasizing effect has made the wave-length

shorter, as has its ability to soften the border between reality

and fantasy. A high level of realness is simply not on top of

the list anymore – real felt feeling associated with an imagined

(or real) conception regarding development in the present

moment is. (See Fig. A)

At some points all conceptions from all individuals intersect

(regardless if science or fantasy evoked the feeling of

conception) – these are the special moments of very nice

presents when the thin border between real and fantasy

dissolve into a reference point in the cosmos telling us: this

is it. This unique phenomenon occurs when the big collective

dream grows bigger than the individual dream, and all space

suddenly becomes equally good - it is a rare but very pleasant

phenomena.

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GUSTAV KARLSSON

Regardless if Odin, Émile Durkheim, Bruno Latour (ANT),

Deleuze & Guattari (Rhizome), Carrie Lola or Svea Månstråle

(among others) had the most influence on today’s collective

worldview, and regardless of which level of realness the

conceptions are based on - we can possibly agree on these

three simple Real Fantasy-statements:

• The more conceptions from individuals we add to the

collective consciousness - the clearer the tendency of a

single collective consciousness appears

• The more zoomed out the observation - the clearer the

tendency of a single collective consciousness appear.

(See Fig. C)

• The clearer the collective consciousness appears - the

more part of the collective consciousness the individual

feels

The Important Unconscious Part of the Wave of Real Fantasy

The wave of real fantasy, as described above, does not give

the whole image (even though it’s a nice and clean looking

waveform). Both the individual and collective perceptual

notion are likely influenced unconsciously – through dreams

that we are unaware of, as repressed fears or as ambitions

and desires. These unconscious experiences hold important

information and it would be stupid to neglect this knowledge

about life as superstition – at least until science proves the

concept of the soul as non-existing.

In the essay “The Structure of the Unconscious” (1916) -

Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung introduced the

term collective unconsciousness. In keeping with Durkheim

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5. Carl Jung The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, Collected Works Volume 8 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975) pp.342

6. Actor-Network theory (Accessed 2019) www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor–network_theory

sociological conceptualization, Jung shares Durkheim’s view

of a connection between individuals. In Durkheim’s case the

connection exists as knowledge production through social

interaction, and in Jung’s case it’s the genes or some spiritual

unconscious force that also creates a bond between the

individuals as part of the collective, a bond that we’re not

yet aware of. But if we remain open to the obscured, we

get signs of it through dreams and extrasensory perceptual

experiences. As Jung describes the concept in the essay - “The

collective unconscious contains the whole spiritual heritage of

mankind’s evolution, born anew in the brain structure of every

individual.”. 5 This is a statement that clearly opposes both the

traditional modern idea where everything can be explained,

as well as more post-modern views - like for instance Latour’s

concept of the Actor-Network theory, that nothing exists

outside the shifting network defined by relationships 6 - or

maybe this “nothing” depends on the definition of what a

relationship is (or could be) - and by extension: if unconscious

connections are considered an equally important part of

networks as conscious ones.

To visualize a collective perception that also includes the very

important unconscious layer is difficult, simply because it’s

part of the unknown. And even if we did know how to visualize

the unconscious, it would be part of the opposite world to the

unconscious universe it was separated from - at the same

time as the process of separation begins.

The collective unconsciousness has no boundaries

***

This text is an excerpt from the book Real Fantasy (The Humble Draft, June 2019)

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GUSTAV KARLSSON

FIGURE A.

The wave consists of two undividable parts: “Real” and “Fantasy”

FIGURE B.

One hundred conceptions observed during a short time interval of one month

FIGURE C.

All individual conceptions observed over a time interval of 1000 years.

The Collective Perception

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SPREDFABRIKEN

Spredfabriken was built during 1951-1953 and designed by

the architect Nils Tesch. The entire building is in cast-in-situ

concrete with a pillar system both inside and in the façade,

where the diagonal structure in the northern and eastern

elevations give it a distinctive industrial character. It was

commissioned by Becker’s paint company, mainly as a storage

building for the raw materials used in paint production. Some

of it was highly poisonous and explosive and this was one

of the reasons the building has a heavy structure almost

fortress-like. The structure is dimensioned to resist bomb

attacks and the basement contains a bomb shelter for 1000

people, designed to withstand nuclear bombs. It’s walls and

roof are 1,5 meters thick and contain 3 200 tons of granite

that was excavated from Katarinaberget when the Katarina

garage was constructed, also functioning as a bomb shelter

for 20 000 people.

Construction of the building was carried out in two stages, the

first one is the northern part, house 35, and the second one,

house 36, with the bomb shelter in the basement. Originally

the façade was raw concrete but in 1957 it was painted in

yellow with the pillars in grey, using Beckers own paint of

course. The concrete, or at least the cement that the building

consists of, has probably passed the Cementa depot which is

located just next door and which has been in use since the

late 1940s. At that time, the cement came from Stora Vika

cement factory near Nynäshamn.

The box-like volume and concrete facade with the visible

structure must have appeared as radical and modern in the

early 1950s in contrast to the surrounding classicist brick

factories. Its character is typical of brutalism, a tendency in

PROJECT BY GERDA PERSSON

1. (Opposite) Concrete model of Spredfabriken (1:400 scale) Image: Gerda Persson

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the history of architecture that barely existed in the 1950s

but which the building could constitute a first example of in

Sweden.

The building was used both as a warehouse and for the

production of paint. In 1951, Beckers was the first in Sweden

to launch latex-based paint. Spred was Becker's own name

for this, and the new product also made the company focus

more on selling its products directly to the private market, as

it was easy to use, quick-drying and odorless compared to the

types of paint that had existed before. In 1965, the new paint

factory was built, which connects to the southern facade of

Spredfabriken and the bomb shelter was not used any more.

In 1990, the building was linked to Nitrolack fabriken by a

corridor on level 2. Production remained in the building until

2005

In 2010 the buildings in Lövholmen were analyzed by the

Stockholm City Museum according to the classification system

used in Stockholm for the cultural heritage value of buildings

and urban environments. Spredfabriken and the other

industrial buildings were categorized as green, this means

that it has been considered to have high cultural-historical

value and to be particularly valuable from a historical, culturalhistorical,

environmental or artistic point of view.

2008 Skanska bought the property in Lövholmen from

Beckers, with the intention to turn the area into housing. Since

then they have applied for the permit to tear the building down

several times but the process has been delayed because of

the cultural heritage classification and because the whole

process of planning the area of Lövholmen has been on hold

until a new location could be found for the concrete company

Cementa. During this time, the building has been empty,

abandoned and exposed to vandalism.

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GERDA PERSSON

2. SOUTH ELEVATION

(Demolished 1965)

3. EAST ELEVATION

4. NORTH ELEVATION

5. WEST ELEVATION

173

7. Image: Gerda Persson

6. Image: Henning Peinerud

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GERDA PERSSON

In the plan for Lövholmen, developed by the city planning

office, it is clear that the building will be demolished along

with most of the other industrial buildings in Lövholmen. On

the Stockholm city webpage this is explained by the buildings

being empty and in bad condition. In December 2018 the city

planning board of Stockholm finally approved the application.

The building will be demolished in 2019.

***

In the fall of 2018, I developed an interest in “Spredfabriken” in Lövholmen. In May 2019 I

made a souvenir in the form of a concrete model in scale 1:400, as a memory of the building.

The model comes with an information brochure including drawings. I also made a concrete

sign that I put on the building.

NOTES:

All Information compiled by Gerda Persson

All drawings are from Stockholm city planning office archive

REFERENCES:

1. Demolition case, diary number 2018-12932, Stockholm city planning office

2. Stockholms Stad, 2017, Development plan for Lövholmen

3. Stockholms Stad, Lövholmen blir ny stadsdel (Lövholmen becomes new urban area),

www.vaxer.stockholm/projekt/lovholmen-blir-ny-stadsdel/

4. Leif Bivegård and Jonas Vikström, 2008, Becker’s color production at Lövholmen in

Stockholm, An industrial history survey, thesis project at Building and industrial heritage

education i Västmanlands län,

5. Martin Lagergren, Tyréns, Lövholmen 12 m.fl. Kulturmiljöutredning (Investigation of cultural

heritage of Lövholmen 12 et. al.), 2018

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NAVIGARE NECESSE EST,

VIVERE NON EST NECESSE

My first project at the architecture office where I work was an

accessibility signage project. Every Stockholm City school was

to be adapted to meet accessibility standards and within that

project a new program for signage was developed. My role

was to plan the sign orientation for individual schools, that is,

to choose where to put what information in order to orientate

oneself. I ended up doing this for over twenty schools and it

led me to more signage projects: some court buildings, a

historic market hall, a hospital, and even an airport.

PROJECT BY BO PILO

The buildings differed vastly in size, as you can imagine, and

spanned in age from the 17th century to a building planned to

be finished in 2025. Involuntarily I became the office signage

expert. In a company with over 500 people and many large

scale projects, that meant a lot of work, which was a good

thing in a recession, and it put me in long projects in contrast

to the usually short and more insecure interior design projects

I had expected to work with. Some colleagues felt bad for

me though, in their mind signage was more on the level of

electrical wiring when it came to designing buildings.

In many projects, signage came last or even as a separate

project afterwards, as its own thing to be added on but still

expected to adjust to the finished architecture. However,

readability, accessibility, and general principles of wayfinding

superseded the aesthetic requirements and sometimes

challenged them, often to the annoyance of the architect. Even

though the knowledge that this work required was basic to

any practicing architect - accessibility rules, an understanding

of how to orientate oneself - my colleges acted as if it was

something different and outside their comfort zone. I heard

it a few times, “you’re the only one who knows that stuff”,

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as if they couldn’t lead someone through a building they

themselves had planned. For an architect it was in an unusual

situation where my colleagues where being more difficult than

the client, who in my experience often understood the subject

very well. The signs - objects of information in the form of

text, pictograms, arrows, and orientation images - played an

important role in how their building would work and how its

visitors performed. They knew how signs could lead, include,

exclude, show, hide, and regulate flows of people.

My meetings with client and user representatives could

sometimes help them to better understand the building, and

the collaborative process of planning the signage was a way

for the user to gain ownership of their new work environment.

It also helped me to move from a schematic layout to more

specialised planning thanks to their thorough knowledge of

daily operations. It sometimes concerned behaviour that an

outsider would be unaware of, especially in emotionally charged

environments like court buildings and hospitals. Regulated

by discretion I had to avoid showing certain information at

points where it seemed to make sense from a wayfinding

perspective. To avoid confrontations, extra thought was put to

guide and gently separate visitors, members of a court, etc.

without losing important aspects of transparency. My favourite

situations were when information had to be avoided, when

signs where superfluous and human interaction took over. It

was as an affirmation that external automated guidance had

limits.

Signs were mainly for visitors, rather than staff. To some

extent signs filled the gap where human interaction had been

removed from a situation where it would have been expected.

To grab the visitor’s attention before they realised that they

were navigating alone, signage used signal colours, phrases

and symbols - elements that could be varied in intensity to

guide visitor behaviour on their route. To keep them moving

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BO PILO

in the right direction and avoid jams or disorientation, signs

had to answer questions before they were asked and more

importantly reward and confirm when you were on the right

path. This was called turn-by-turn navigation, a stimulus

response strategy where the reading of an environment

played a smaller role while direction and reward were in

exaggerated focus. To be detailed, it bypassed the creation

of a cognitive map in the visitor’s hippocampus, which meant

that the building would not stay in their memory, making their

reliance on signage likely even on returning visits.

Positive reinforcement, like this, were most efficient when

distributed seemingly at random, which was inherently the

case with signage since the person being guided wasn’t sure

when to turn until a sign said so. When several simultaneously

possible directions presented themselves the anticipation of

an upcoming reward kept the visitor’s attention on signs,

ensuring their arrival at the intended destination. This created

habitual behaviour, a compulsion loop that made the visitor

susceptible to behavioural modification, they could be herded,

and conditioned with subtle rewards and punishments

towards desired outcomes. This tuning of action was useful

in environments where commercial and non-commercial

interests mixed.

Reinforcement was coordinated to detract from unwanted

emotions. For the purpose of optimised orientation and

some exceptions of controlled diversion into commerce, only

positive, strengthening, and productive actions and emotions

were promoted in the various information texts found within

the signage programs. This was of particular importance in

environments where signage controlled the behaviour of large

groups of people, where the harmony of the whole and its

capacity to move with a collective purpose had to be kept intact

in case of severe situations. Any distinction between people in

language use and symbols could undermine this. Symbols could

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trigger behaviour in ways that language could not. This explained

why despite their standardised looks, pictograms had in reality

been without an international technical standard for a long time,

due to the complexity and vastness of its subject matter.

The content, placement, and sometimes even sound of certain

key signs, like an orientation map or split-flap departure board,

were used to collect and “reset” people when they entered a

building, to make them leave negative thoughts outside and

focus on the practicalities of their visit, like finding their way.

Happy-or-not buttons gave visitors a chance to get rid of a

bad mood after a security control before entering the taxfree

zone. For safety reasons groups needed to behave in

controlled, measurable ways, in confluence. Mutual visibility

helped to produce patterns based on imitation and the visitor

surrendered and attuned to the group.

The over reliance on signage - external direction for orientation

- weakened the visitor’s memory of environments, many

used signs instead of memorising spatial information. Adults

could recall and give detailed descriptions of places from

their childhood but not remember distinguishing features

of their current workplace or commute route. The reliance

on signage prevented the build up of long-term memories. A

study of the memory habits of 6000 adults in eight European

countries found more than a third would turn first to signage

to find their way. This had serious impact on the development

of memories, because such stimulus response information

tended to be immediately forgotten. Our brains strengthened

memories each time we recalled them, and at the same

time forgot irrelevant memories that distracted us. Reward

based navigation bypassed cognitive mapping - acquiring,

coding, storing, recalling and decoding information about

locations and attributes in our spatial environment. Cognitive

maps were essential for everyday environmental behaviour

and, in a larger perspective, human survival. It was a coping

180

BO PILO

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181

mechanism through which we answered two basic questions

quickly and efficiently: where certain valued things were, and

how to get there from where we were. When navigating by

stimulus–response connections general aspects of spatial

relationships played a minimal role. The person knew that an

object was valued and one way of getting to it, but knowledge

of its whereabouts in relation to the location of other objects

was absent. Someone who really knew a route knew more

about that route than just the appropriate responses at

certain choice points and, because he thought ahead, was

also engaging in cognitive mapping. By cognitive mapping

you became independent of external direction, you were the

autonomous and efficacious cause of your own movements,

- an agent. Your movements were caused by you and under

your control, not by some external force. In some ways this

reunification was a process of self-decolonisation.

When I first learned to make technical

drawings by hand, it was the first year of my

bachelor, I spent evenings studying marine

navigation to get an inshore diploma. Crossconnections

between architectural drawing

and drawing sailing routes seemed inevitable,

at first on an abstract level, making

calculated lines meet for some planned

purpose, but eventually taking bearing,

reading landscape, grids, coordinates,

looking for reference points shaped my way

of thinking about space. It was during this

time I started collecting (taking) pictures of

informal meeting points, reference objects in

possible interactional networks, signs that

could imply an invisible infrastructure, things

by which to take bearing in a grid of memory.

For this text I included a selection of stools, a

water fountain, and a medusa head, all taken

in Istanbul in 2013 and 2018.

182

BO PILO

All images by Bo Pilo (Istanbul 2013 & 2018)

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183

1.

1. Take the map with you.

2. Go somewhere, anywhere you like.

3. Decide your current position and

direction on the map, could be anywhere

along the red lines.

4. Start to walk along the red line,

translate it as well as you can to your

own surrounding. Paths are equally

good as roads.

5. Get lost.

IN SEARCH OF THE MIRACULOUS

THROUGH CATASTROPHE

“Any old map will do” was the conclusion when a small

Hungarian military unit found their way through a snowstorm

in the Alps with the help from a map over the Pyrenees. 1

PROJECT BY ANNA ASPLIND

Can we use the map from one place or a situation to

gain new insights and understand the place we’re in or

the situation that is currently happening? To find out I

created a map of utmost symbol of catastrophe - Pompeii,

layered with the veritable aim of avoiding catastrophe - the

evacuation plan of Operation Stockholm 1961. The map

can be used to explore other places. The directions of

the evacuation plan will guide us through the networks of

Pompeii’s streets in the place we’re in at the moment. The

map is a tool to get lost, drift around the city. Is it possible

to find the miraculous through the catastrophe?

“It started in the morning with a cloud rising from the

crater. Then there came a black terrible cloud that

shot steam and fire. Shortly afterwards, the black

cloud lowered over the landscape and swept down

over the bay. Now came ash, but not yet so dense. I

looked around, a thick darkness threatened us from

behind and it rolled over the ground like a river. We

just managed to sit down by the side of the road when

it became completely dark. Not as dark as during a

cloudy night, but dark as it gets in a room when you just

blown out the light.”

A letter from Pompeii. Plinus (79 a.d)

2.(Left) Mundus Subeterraneus: Athanasius Kircher (1664)

3.(Right) Vesuvius - Athanasius Kircher

Weick, Karl E., Sensemaking in organizations, Sage, Thousand Oaks, Calif., 1995:54

1. “This incident, related by the hungarian Noble Laureate Albert Szent-Gyorti and preserved in a poem by Holub

(1977), happened during military maneuvers in Switzerland. The young lieutenant of a small Hungarian

detachment in the Alps sent a reconnaissance unit into the icy wilderness. It began to snow immediately,

snowed for 2 days, and the unit did not return. The lieutenant suffered, fearing that he had dispatched his

own people to death. But on the third day the unit came back. Where had they been? How had they made

their way? Yes, they said, we considered ourselves lost and waited for the end. And then one of us found a

map in his pocket. That calmed us down. We pitched camp, lasted out the snowstorm, and then with the

map we discovered our bearings. And here we are. The lieutenant borrowed this remarkable map and had

a good look at it. He discovered to his astonishment that it was not a map of the Alps, but a map of the

Pyrenees. This incident raises the intriguing possibility that when you are lost, any old map will do.”

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185

4. Drifting # 2 Färgfabriken

When reaching the end of the red line we found a circle,

just like the one on the map! Next to it a hopscotch.

Is the hopscotsch archived knowledge? Is the

design and movement scores an ancient timegeographical

map over the universe? When

reading the German investigator Friedrich

Hirsch who devoted his life to study childrens

hopscotsch there is no doubt about it. The games

are transmitted from child to child with complete

faithfulness and a demand for accuracy that

otherwise can only be found in a cult. Situationist

# 5 Forgotten knowledge of the universe in the

childrens hopscotch

5. Fairy Rings

6. Calamari Rings

7. Drifting #1 Umeå

186

ANNA ASPLIND

9. Witch Rings

8. Sperm whale skin with Giant Squid sucker scars - Murray, J.

and J. Hjort (1912). The Depths of the Ocean: A General Account

of the Modern Science of Oceanography Based Large-

ly on the Scientific Researches of the Norwegian Steamer

‘Michael Sars’ in the North Atlantic

11. Hickelkasten, Hüpfspiel, Paradiesspiel,

Himmel und Hölle, Tempelhüpfen, Reise

zum Mond, Hinkekasten, Hüpfe-, Huppeoder

Hüppekästchen.

13. Bentley’s Snowflakes

10. Gurdjieff’s Enneagram can be found in the book

In search of the Miraculous, written by Russian

philosopher P. D. Ouspensky on George Gurdjieff’s

teaching of the fourth way.

14. Drawing for a Church:Francesco Di Giorgio

Martini (1439-1502)

12. Ideal Cities, from the left top corner: Filarete; Fra Giocondo; Girolamo Magi; Giorgio Vasari;

Antonio Lupicini; Daniele Barbaro; Pietro Cattaneo; Francesco di Giorgio Martini

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187

15. Drifting #2 Färgfabriken

“Where we do not react on myth but

truly live in it, there is no cleft between

the actual reality of perception and the

world of mythical fantasy.”

16. Evacuation plan Operation Stockholm 1961- Krigsarkivet

Ernest Cassirer in Rowe, Colin & Koetter, Fred, Collage city,

MIT Press pbk. ed., MIT, Cambridge, Mass., 1983

188 ANNA ASPLIND

17. The Naked City (1957) - Guy Debord

A psychogeographic map by the Situationists

If the architecture of fear embodies through bunkers and forts

along the nation borders, then the choreographed exercises,

controlled bodies and artefacts of the cold war can be thought

of as the time-space-geography of fear. Operation Stockholm

in 1961 is an example of this. At 06.42 on the 23d of August

a warning signal aroused 252 000 sleepy Stockholmers to

a fantastic summer day. The message in the speakers and

on the phones told Stockholm’s inhabitants to evacuate the

city immediately. The world’s biggest evacuation exercise was

a demonstration of the state’s’ ability to organize and take

care of its citizens. The event had some unexpected results.

The people saw it as an opportunity to become tourists in

the periphery of Stockholm. Local NGO’s and businesses

arranged entertainment and food for the arrivals. It became

a flourishing commercial gimmick.

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189

19. Operation Stockholm 1961: Aftonbladet. För vackert väder för

utrymning. 23 april 1961. Krigsarkivet

18. Evacuation plan Operation

Stockholm 1961 -

Krigsarkivet

20. Hesa Fredrik - SE. Kriget tar sikte på

civilt folk som bör lära sig att möta

faran. 1939, nr: 49 1⁄2 - Krigsarkivet

21. Futuro house. For military use outside

Söderhamn, Sweden - Fortifikationsverket

190 ANNA ASPLIND

22. Drömmen om ett torn outside Söderhamn, a participatory art project:

Anna Asplind, Orestis Nikolaidis & Guillermo Arsuaga

PROJECTS

191

23. Evacuation plan Operation Stockholm 1961 - Krigsarkivet

FAUX RED

“For a caveman, cave walls were taken for granted, and he

opposed them by painting on them and expressing his will

in opposition to nature (an expression of ‘beauty’).” 1

As in this quote from Vilelm Flussers text Bare Walls, painting

is an act of changing something given by nature (or culture),

something that is taken for granted. Colour is a holder of

aesthetic and political values which communicates subtly

or directly. Faux means imitation, fake or false and often

describes an imitation of materials such as marble and fur. The

red in the title refers to the red iron oxide pigment extracted

from the leftovers of the copper mining at Kopparberget in

Falun, Sweden. This particular red, today branded as Falu

rödfärg, 2 has caught my attention in a political climate of

increasing nationalism and conservatism. Faux Red resists

simplifications and nostalgia. Through projective explorations

it seeks to problematize colours, forms and materials in

relation to cultural and national identity and heritage.

PROJECT BY VERONICA SKEPPE

1.(Opposite) Falurädfärg/Falu red

paint depicting a brick bond, wood

cut, Veronica Skeppe, 2019

Colour as an artificial material, a material that

appears to be another, plays an important part in

Sweden’s material history. Because of the remote

northern geographical location and general poverty,

real materials have been too costly, hard to reach

and difficult to process by unskilled craftsmen.

Imitations of exclusive materials in paint has often

been the solution. 3 In this process of mimicking,

red iron oxide has a position of its own. The earliest

known examples are churches in the 1300s which

were built in local stones, covered in lime plaster

and finally transformed into a brick imitation with

the use of red and white lime paint. 4

1. Vilém Flusser, Bare Walls, The Shape of

Things A Philosophy of Design (London:

Reaktion Books, 1999) pp.78

2. www.falurodfarg.com

3. This is thoroughly described in the book Så

målade man, svenskt byggnadsmåleri från

senmedeltiden till nutid, by Karin Fridell Anter

and Henrik Wannfors, (Solna: AB Svensk

Byggtjänst, 1989)

4. De Röda Husen

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195

In the 1570s the Swedish King Johan III wanted to transform

the royal palace in Stockholm to a renaissance palace

enclosed in white marble with red copper roofs, precedented

in European castles. Instead of the real materials marble

and copper the King gave ordered the painting of the castle

in white chalk and the roofs in red using the pigment from

Kopparberget in Falun. 5 Image 2.

5. Karin Fridell Anter, Henrik Wannfors, Så målade man, svenskt byggnadsmåleri

från senmedeltiden till nutid (Stockholm: Svensk Byggtjänst AB, 1997) pp.64

6. Ibid.

In the 1600s wealth grew and Sweden expanded its territory.

A desire to demonstrate wealth is present in the built mansions

and palaces both in the cities and countryside. Mansions of

wealthy landowners were built in wood and painted red with greyyellow

window and portico frames to imitate brick, sandstone

or exclusive oak wood, which were used in the palaces in

Germany and Holland. Image 3. In the cities, exclusive buildings

were built in brick masonry and painted with red lime paint

and a regular brick masonry pattern were imprinted into the

paint. The facade could also be covered in plaster and painted

in red. 6 The painted image of the material is superimposed

on the materials with constructive properties and produce an

ideal copy of the underlying structure. Image 4.

Through time, the red paint is filtered through the Swedish

society, from buildings used by royalties and nobles to priests

and other officials. From city to countryside. In the 1800s

red was the dominant color of buildings in the countryside.

Cottages, barns and farmhouses were all covered in red paint.

Buildings of the wealthier classes are painted in yellowish colors

in order imitate the fancier sandstone and red is no longer

associated with wealth. The National romantic movement of

art, architecture and literature in Sweden where interested

in the historic Swedish crafts and traditions. The painter Carl

Larsson used his home, a farmhouse painted in red, and

its surrounding countryside as motives. In parallel a political

and social movement with the intention of providing the large

number of poor people with a good house, a home, grew. This

196

VERONICA SKEPPE

2. Stockholm from north, in

Civitates orbis terrarum,

fourth band, published in

Köln 1588 by Georg Braun

and Frans Hogenberg.

3. Drawing of brick building, Master Masonry

Anders Knutsson,1652, Stockholm

4. Red painted bricks with white painted

mortar lines on top of a brick wall.

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197

6. Cooking of Falu red paint

5. Type drawing and cost calculation of a

”egnahem” house, Torben Grut, 1905

198 VERONICA SKEPPE

is called the “Own your home movement”, Egnahemsrörelsen

in Swedish. Image 5. Large numbers of Swedes migrated to

America because of poverty and lack of opportunities and this

was a way of trying to keep people within the country. The red

cabin became a model and a symbol of the good home.

In the workshop Urban Herbarium: The Swedish Ground and

its Colours at the Open Studio at Färgfabriken, held together

with Ana Barat Martins, we wanted to reflect on what is

considered Swedish in relation to its landscape, folklore and

colours. Red paint was cooked from the traditional ingredients

for sludge paint, where flour, water and red pigment were the

main ingredients. By cooking the red paint, I wanted to learn

from the past as well as explore how it can be used differently,

as a creative practice and not only a preservation of a tradition.

In the workshop the red paint was used to imprint found

objects on a fabric. The red paint was combined with imprints

made in pigments from plants and other found objects from

around Färgfabriken. The large, collectively produced textile

can be seen as a representation of the surrounding place

of Färgfabriken. In a second experiment red pigment from

Falun was mixed with linseed-oil and with the use of stencils

applied in different figurative patterns to a stool. The rust like

colour give the stool an almost metallic impression beyond

the familiar aesthetic of a red painted cottage in the Swedish

landscape.

***

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199

7. (Opposite) The textile of imprints capturing the

surrounding urban landscape of the Färgfabriken area.

8. The stool with its rust like colour. Iron oxide or rust

being the main component in the Falu red pigment.

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201

I am trying to understand my role in this system.

Driving forces and motivations. Responsibilities and the line

of business.

The impression of the newly graduated architect that we

can change society for the better, that we have a place to

fill.

Architecture firms’ engagement in ecosystem services,

energy-plus buildings, densification and citizen dialogues.

Reality and ethics.

IF WE DON’T DO IT

SOMEONE ELSE WILL

As architects and planners we participate in construction

processes everyday, often with an attitude that what we design

will contribute to something good. Vibrant neighborhoods,

parks that enhance ecological connections, housing with

accessible public transportation that reduce our car

dependency. We draw lines on maps, chose materials and

streamline surfaces. Intrinsically interwoven with society’s

continuous machinery.

Meanwhile the climate is altered and disrupted. Construction

processes in 2016 were accountable for 21% of Sweden’s

greenhouse gas emissions. 1 Further climate effects

connected to construction derive from demolition of existing

buildings and exploitation of finite resources like natural

areas and agricultural land, 2 all common prerequisites for

architectural projects. Architectvs can work for clients with

dubious economical investments or in countries that violate

human rights. Some projects add to increased consumption

PROJECT BY SOFIA LARSSON 1. Boverket (2018) Hållbart byggande med minskad klimatpåverkan.

Boverket: www.boverket.se

2. Jordbruksverket (2013) Väsentligt samhällsintresse? Jordbruksmarken

i kommunernas fysiska planering, Jordbruksverket, Jönköping

PROJECTS

203

or transportation. Ongoing construction processes can have

social consequences like raised rents and forced moving

patterns. Land is affected by what we do, people are affected.

Most architecture assignments carry some aspect within the

fields of sustainability or ethics that are rarely displayed on

our websites or Instagram accounts.

The architecture consultant works simultaneously for the

public, the municipality, the developer, the architecture office

and ones own convictions. The mere core of the profession can

be described as the necessity of prioritizing among conflicting

interests, where housing shortages sometimes contradict the

preservation of farmland, cultural values contradict physical

accessibility, economic interests contradict the durability of

material choices and the human perception of safety can

stand against the habitat of the white-headed woodpecker.

To achieve an overview of a project’s physical and social

consequences can be challenging, and despite prospective

ethical doubts the dubious project is often accepted anyway.

Sometimes with the mindset that it would have been worse if

we were not the ones performing the task.

A consulting project is not a set deal, but it always comes

with premises from an earlier stage or decisions from a

higher authority. A comprehensive plan has been produced.

Politicians from the town council have passed the development

plan. A public hearing has been held. The developer’s profit

has been defined. Everything on the base of democracy.

Is it that simple?

PROJECTS 205

3. Östnäs, A. Arkitekterna och deras yrkesutveckling i Sverige, (Göteborg: Chalmers Tekniska Högskola, 1984)

4. Ibid. pp. 177-178. pp. 189.

5.Ibid. pp.136-137

6. Ibid pp. 26-29

With some naive frustration based on a few years working

as a landscape architect, I embarked on a journey through

the architecture world’s ideas and thoughts on sustainability,

projects and conceptions of the architect’s role. Without

having experienced recession or having been responsible for

paying wages, I have nourished a need for understanding why

projects with ethically questionable premises are accepted

by architecture offices, despite awareness of the project’s

consequences on the environment and social structures?

Society regards them as fully legal and in the process of taking

them on it is rather, depending on one’s ideological position,

the individual’s personal ethics that is challenged. How can I

be part of a project whose premises to a certain point do not

comply with my own convictions? Where do we draw the line?

Is there a line?

Ethical dilemmas are not new, nor unique to the architectural

profession. The conflict of loyalty between drawing for the public

and obeying the developer’s economic reality grew steadily at

the end of the 19th century in Sweden. 3 From a personal

relationship to the actual user of the building the client shifted

to an anonymous user during the industrialization period. 4 The

dilemma was intensified during the severe housing shortage

in the 1920s when architects’ altruistic awakening developed

together with the rest of society and the client base also shifted

from the bourgeoisie to municipal housing corporations. 5 In

the 1970’s the conflict of interest concerned issues of design,

quality and citizen participation after the Million Program’s

streamlined construction industry, 6 still relevant questions in

our times of housing shortage and an accelerated planning

process. Today climate change can be added as yet another

challenge in the tug of war between the developers, politicians

and society, between profit and climate, between the short

sighted and the long term based mindset.

206

SOFIA LARSSON

If we don’t do it someone else will?

In need of guidance on my role as an architect I started

conducting interviews. I contacted architects, landscape

architects, interior architects and city planners. Selfemployed,

employees, CEO:s and researchers within business

ethics, social psychology, philosophy and architecture. Thanks

to the participation and thoughts from the experience of the

interviewees a number of perspectives emerged.

Driving forces and motivations:

• Architecture practice’s historic dependency on power and

money.

• Responsibility, for the planet and the employees.

• Risk, social for the individual and economic for the office.

• Group psychology, moral courage and to be inconvenient.

• Tactics, choosing your battles and balancing contradicting

interests.

• Energy and awareness enough to engage in ethical issues.

• Individual driving forces, aesthetic as well as equalitybased.

• Navigation among the vast amount of information on

sustainability issues.

• Ideological convictions, impact through interaction or

alienation.

• Business strategies and platforms for reaching out

• Office atmosphere and loyalties towards the firm.

• Self perception of the vocation disconnected from reality

208 SOFIA LARSSON

I launch an hypothesis: would it facilitate the individual’s ability

to make clearer statements concerning environmental and

equality issues if the architecture office had an ethical policy?

Or a checklist for understanding what kind of project they are

accepting? Where the use perhaps would not consist of a

direct decision on taking on the project or not, but rather work

as a catalyst for discussion? To make an active assessment

of one’s possibilities for impact in every project and promote a

more active value based business strategy that involves more

people in the office?

Whether the proposition of an ethical policy was considered

by the respondents as a provocation or a benign approach

the expected approval was conspicuous by its absence. A

common policy for facilitating ethical statements as an office

was seen as either unnecessary, impossible or worth earnest

consideration, albeit ineffective.

Early in the process I realized that architects’ ethical

conceptions are more complex than something a simple

checklist can affect. That architects are difficult to unite

and that, despite our homogenous configuration, have such

different ideas on the architecture firm’s role in society. That

the most important parameter despite all good intentions

is to assure ones own office’s economic survival which

unfortunately precedes both societal and climate interests.

We need to make ourselves ambassadors of sustainability at

the same time as we are participating in processes that in

many cases produce the opposite.

We are part of society and part of the market.

Maybe that was the answer I was looking for.

It all depends on our conception of time.

***

PROJECTS 211

URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND ITS

DISCONTENTS

Or the insincere authenticity of modern life.

In the age of Trump and all the new more and more unbelievable

realities and narratives one could be forgiven for not knowing

what is true, real or dreamed up. In one sense we seem more

free than ever before to redefine stories and question the

most common and powerful narratives, in another however

our material agency seems to have been largely diminished.

But have we not in a sense always lived our lives in a realm of

constantly renegotiated narratives and reevaluations, have this

dynamic now not just become more blatant and accelerated?

And is there still not a prevalence of narratives of the powerful,

regardless of ostensible equality and lack of direct repression or

censorship? With ubiquitous big data surveillance, a constant

and oxymoronic construction of authenticity and where people

may feel as if their own thoughts were almost monitored, it

becomes ever more important to question these narratives

and suggest other alternatives.

This project investigates and questions what kind of common

narratives surround current city development and how this

influences urban daily life. Does positivist speech of growth

and prosperity sometimes enable exploitation and the erosion

of so-called consumer choices and of individual agency?

The mega-project Hudson Yards is a brand new area in New

York City, with 18 new skyscrapers built on top of a rail-yard to

a price tag of ca 25 billion dollars. This project can be said to

have hyper-gentrified an already gentrified area in the middle

of Manhattan, where many thought further development was

more or less impossible. Walking through this new area a

couple of things become evident, despite large open outdoor

PROJECT BY ANDRES VILLARREAL

1. View from atop of “The Vessel” in 2019

Photo: Andres Villarreal

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213

areas the premises remain curiously dead and inhospitable, it

is largely devoid of greenery and in its centre is situated a new

large shopping mall. Beside this mall there is also a large public

walkable sculpture called "The Vessel" and next to it is a structure

called "The Shed" that will host art and other spectacles and

happenings. It becomes fairly clear however that The Shed

and The Vessel both function as enablers and validators of a

project created to generate revenue and consumption rather

than to serve the publics interests in art or public communal

space. Through The Shed, contemporary art here functions

as a validator for the adjacent mall and while visiting it and The

Vessel people are also quite simply encouraged to wander into

the mall to shop. You are for example not allowed to enter The

Vessel without first securing a ticket and then having to wait

for 1 hour before one is allowed to enter, regardless of the

current amount of visitors.

Hudson Yards becomes a prime example of postmodern city

exploitation and of this newer form of city and real estate

development and and its implications for people and the

social realm. Here no expenses have been saved in terms of

architectural extravagances, yet all areas outside the shops

remain strangely uninhabitable and hostile, the only options to

sit are inside cafes inside the mall despite huge outdoor areas

that would fit perfectly as public communal space and large

void spaces inside the mall. It has already been derogatively

dubbed "Little Dubai".

Some claim we live in a new and more dynamic postmodern

world where we are more free to define and model social life to

our needs where some claim the the opposite to be the case

and would here rather like to substitute postmodernity with "the

cultural logic of late capitalism" as Fredric Jameson famously

dubbed it. The answer may very well be both these things at

the same time, yet the latter seems more likely to remain

stable than the former, and the former seems perhaps to exist

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ANDRES VILLARREAL

2. The Hudson Yards under construction in April 2017, as seen

along 11th avenue. Photo: Andres Villarreal

3. The Hudson Yards under construction in April 2019, as seen

along 11th avenue. Photo: Andres Villarreal

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more and more as an idea rather than a lived experience. As

the discursive realm may in some ways expand, although that

could also be debated, it is easy to forget that people’s access

to actual physical space is becoming scarcer. Some would

say that people as consumers have become appendages to

the generation of revenue, where personal agency has in fact

shrunk while simultaneously being narrated as having become

expanded.

This photo documentary project depicts the rapid change at

the construction site of Hudson Yards visually, as seen from the

ground. While looking monumental, progressive and vibrant on

the paper and when viewed from a distance but close up it is

rather a peculiarly dead place, both physically and emotionally.

There is very little to actually engage with here, besides going

shopping. During rapid changes like these it is easy to forget

what was before and how it looked and not the least felt. The

material transformation of the city can change not only your

visual perception, but also how you navigate the city space and

ultimately how you feel. Added to that are of course broader

consequences regarding the access to affordable housing

and public space. The pictures and perspectives serve as a

memory and as a documentation of this rapid transformation

and also simply as a reminder that once there was something

very different here where now these impenetrable silver

skyscrapers stand. Do we want a city that enables social

autonomy or one that erodes and inhibits it? The Hudson

Yards is by many already seen as a symbol for the erosion of

such autonomy.

Are there any similarities between the new hyper capitalist

construction projects such as Hudson Yards and the art world

and its current development? It is clear that the premises at

Hudson Yards don't need to serve any beneficial purposes

for "humans on the ground", much like art produced at this

stage of later modernity or capitalism do not need to have

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ANDRES VILLARREAL

any other purpose or value than as a signifier of value, where

collectors buy the works of young promising artists in bulk

hoping some of them will become famous and pay off as

investments in a similar way to stocks. And privately owned

art magazines can conduct journalism with the purpose of

maintaining the monetary value of certain products (art works)

through a discourse that disguises itself as being solely about

their intrinsic value. While both products, art, architecture/

infrastructure, could technically also serve more functionalist

or humanist purposes (and historically often have done so)

rather than strictly monetary ones, in the current historical

moment they clearly do not. But the crux is here that they at

the same time retain the pretence of doing so. While housing,

art and indeed most things in society has long been the subject

of profit, investment and speculation, such blatant decoupling

from other purposes seem to have accelerated exponentially

as of late.

One might ponder what kind of subjectivities are being created

in these environments where capital has become a so-called

automatic fetish, what kind of lived experiences become

possible and which ones impossible? What detached feelings

of alienation do such circumstances ultimately create where

idealistic purposes and functions are ostensibly and discursively

present but practically or physically very much absent? What

exactly is being internalised now, when the insincere appears

almost identical to the sincere and where it is also treated

and talked about, albeit perhaps not felt, as such? The idea

of the markets capacity for co-opting almost everything is not

new, neither is the question of the privatisation of daily life or

what type of subject this forced state of liking and internalising

insecurity and constant change creates. The question of how

to deal with this development, practically and discursively is

however an all the more urgent one to raise. Perhaps the

importance of space, both physically and mentally, should be

both remembered and rediscovered.

4. (Following page) View from atop of “The Vessel” in 2019

Photo: Andres Villarreal

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220

HEALING TREES

The belief that the forest is a healing force and that trees can

cure disease goes back to methods in Nordic folk-medicine.

The Nordic folk medicine is a tradition that is based on magic

and beliefs about supernatural beings, but also content where

experience and rational assumptions play a major role. These

cures can be traced to the Bronze Age, but the ideas had the

greatest spread at the end of the 1800s.

Throughout history, people have seen the old tree as a

connection with the ancestors, or with the world’s alpine.

In old folk-medicine a disfigured tree was believed to cure

disease or relieve pain. By transmitting the disease materially

and symbolically, the tree became the new carrier of the pain.

These trees were often associated with different types of

taboos and were believed to be able to transmit the disease

to the person who broke the taboo. 1 The physical surrounding

could also be used as a place of sacrifice where one could

leave objects (Image 2).

Soil preparation is a very old method meaning that the sick

person, usually a child, is drawn through a narrow hole (Image

3). The procedure was associated with a set of rules. It should

be carried out under absolute silence on a Thursday evening

when the moon was below, or that a penny, a linen cloth or

other belongings would be left in the tree. An interpretation

is that the child should be able to take part of the life force of

the tree and thereby be reborn. The tree became a a receiver

for human pain. 2 Protecting these trees could be crucial in

people's lives. 3 However, man’s relation to nature and its

resources has changed over time.

1.(Opposite) Rows of trees in a Swedish industrial pine plantation (Image: Åsa Agerstam)

PROJECT BY ÅSA AGERSTAM 1. Tillhagen, C. Folk Medicine (Stockholm: 1958)

2. Jorddragning. Nationalencyklopedin, band 10. (Höganäs: Bokförlaget Bra Böcker. 1993) pp.194

3. Persson, 0. Träd och människor (Stockholm: Skogsek förlag, 1977)

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2. Magical pouch, dated 1885.

(Image: Tillhagen, C. 1958. Folk

medicine. Stockholm pp.86)

3. Jorddragning: A traditional Swedish folk

medicine where a child is pulled through a

tree to recover from sickness.

(Image: Uppland 1918)

4. Plantation pine is usually harvested

before trees reach 100 years, with a

diameter that can easily be embraced

by a child. (Image: Åsa Agerstam)

Sweden is deserting landscapes. On

half of Sweden’s surface there are

quadrants of trees, planted at the

same time, of the same variety and in

straight rows. The national landscape is

currently transforming into a strict grid

architecture. Where there used to be

fields, there are now productive forests.

The tree trunks stand in endless rows,

forming a hectic rhythm where individual

trees seem to merge (Image 1). The

living forest land has been transformed

into an abstract painting. The forest

landscape undergoes the same kind of

change that the cities did in the 1960’s

in Sweden. 4

While a man may live long, the trees are

harvested in the modern forest at the

prime of their lifespan. Out in the woods,

most trees are already younger than

humans. There is hardly any sawmill in

Sweden that is prepared for coarser

logs than a child can embrace (Image

4). Throughout Sweden, untouched

forests which are home to a multitude

of species, have been transformed into

sterile monocultures where the trees

are of the same species and age. By

traveling further north, deeper into the

“periphery”, the forests are even more

brutally disassembled. 5 The Paper-mass

industry is the largest buyer of wood

from these productions.(Image 5)

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ÅSA AGERSTAM

Cultivating the trees to grow faster at the girth, they develop

more and more branches, wider annual rings and a lower

timber density. Straight trees are almost always better

than crooked. This is because it is easier for the industry to

handle them in their processes. Bends give different types

of negative fiber interference, but it is difficult to find any

disadvantages with straight wood. It is also usually better with

higher dimensions, as it will be more economical at all levels. 6

The crooked, aged and deviant has therefore no value to

exist. The diverse forest has throughout history been an

important place for humans to find comfort or hope. Taking

advantage of the opportunities that existed was natural.

The tree often symbolized their last hope. It is not difficult

to understand that a tree was believed to possess magical

powers if these severely ill people suddenly came on the road of

improvement. This value is rationalized away in current forest

industry processes when these spatial qualities are slowly

disappearing from our landscapes. The current colonization

and exploitation of resources is a result of being remote

from nature. Modernization and urbanization have made life

divided into two parts. The sense and rational belong to the

city life, and what does not fit there, relationships, feelings,

hope, spirituality, irrational things, belong to a private space

that is separated from everyday life and the platform for this

is the forest. This inner living space is threatened by the

physical processes that irrevocably inscribe themselves in the

landscape. In that sense, a disfigured tree is still a symbol for

our last hope.

5. (Following page) A Swedish pulp mill (Image: Åsa Agerstam)

4. Zaremba M. Skogen vi ärvde (Stockholm: 2012)

5. Schmitz H. Thinking Like a Mountain, (Stockholm: 2018)

6. Zaremba M. Skogen vi ärvde (Stockholm: 2012)

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226

PRESERVING A PUBLIC SPACE

“Building is the customary answer to most problems, the

demolition of a building is followed by a new superior design.

[…] Architectural authorship is measured in building objects

and subtraction exists to facilitate building.” 1

PROJECT BY BERT STOFFELS

Recently Robbrecht & Daem Architects won the competition

for the conversion of the Brussels Stock exchange into a beer

temple. The staircase (Image 1 & 2) of the Bourse was or

is symbolically, the most important public space in Brussels,

where people gathered to protest or to mourn in the case

of national tragedies. This place has now been depoliticized,

since political gathering and protest is prohibited. This fits

the plans of the Brussels government in their strategy of

commodification of the inner city to attract more tourists.

With this counterproposal I wanted to practice an urgency of

the architect to question or criticize the requested building

program. Therefore this intervention takes away materiality

from the bourse rather than adding new unnecessary

program.

Building subtraction.

‘Subtraction’ as coined by Keller Easterling could work as

a ‘designerly’ discipline in itself, a discipline that architects

should practice.

So this proposal was also a way to find out how an architecture

of subtraction could be designed. The proposal questions who

has the right to author the destruction of a building.

For this reason the proposal tries to mainly preserve the

qualities of the public space connected to the bourse and

1. (Opposite) Staircase and plinth of the Bourse. Image: Bert Stoffels.

1. Keller Easterling, Subtraction. Critical Spatial Practice 4, Edited by

Nicolas Hirsch & Markus Miessen (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2014)

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its symbolically loaded staircase, as a theatre of the city,

by subtracting the building up from the plinth. The winning

design for the beer temple proposes to cut out slices of the

plinth to so-to-say make the partly privatized program of the

building transparent and publicly accessible (Image 3). The

plinth of the bourse as the substructure of this type of neoclassical

architecture creates a story-high plateau to put the

superstructure on a stage and give it a prestigious appeal.

This intervention reacts on this architectural gesture of the

pretended opening up of a public plinth by subverting the

position of this plinth as a monument in itself that becomes

superstructure. A memorial to the public space that once

was there.

The model (Image 4) shows two different scenarios in time. In

summer the public plinth could become a public basin where

people can just sit next to the water or swim. In Winter the

water can be taken out so that the foundations show their

labyrinthic qualities in which people can hide from the public

eye to create a different kind of public space than the ones

we know today in Brussels’ city center.

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BERT STOFFELS

3. Render for the design of the open plinth.

Image: Robbrecht & Daem architecten.

2. Staircase and plinth of the Bourse.

Image: Bert Stoffels.

5.(Following Page) Model. Image: Bert Stoffels.

4. Birdseye view plinth of the Bourse. Image: Bert Stoffels.

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THE SUN RISES EVERY MORNING

AT THE SAME PLACE

AND SETS EVERY EVENING

AT THE OPPOSITE SIDE

« O sol aparece todas as manhãs do mesmo lado e some

- se todas as tardes do lado oposto. Chove, faz frio e

calor, “as luas” vão passando, há tempestades e nevões,

porque é assim mesmo e não pode ser de outra maneira

(…) Qualquer fenómeno é um “aviso” ou um castigo

sobrenatural. Desconhecem a explicação rudimentar e

lógica das coisas simples. A história da Humanidade,

principia e acaba, para cada um, na sua própria vida. »

Maria Lamas, “As mulheres do meu País”. (Lisboa: Actuális,

Lda.1948)

“The sun rises every morning at the same place and

sets every evening at the opposite side. It rains, it’s cold

and warm, the moon cycles keep going, there is storms

because it is like that and it can’t be in another way.

Any natural phenomena is a warning or a supernatural

punishment. They don’t know how to explain and the logic

behind simple things. The History of Humanity, begins and

ends, in each of themselves and their own lives.” ¹

This sentence by Maria Lamas is a description of a problem

that had been haunting Portugal for a long time when she

wrote about it in 1948, and unfortunately continued to be a

problem until quite recently. She was talking about Illiteracy.

PROJECT BY ANA BARATA MARTINS

1. Translation by Carlota Jérez solely of this excerpt of “As mulheres do

meu País” (Maria Lamas) for the purpose of this publication.

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In her book she talks about Illiteracy among farmers and

peasants living in the countryside, and specifically about the

life and miseries of the Portuguese women. In this quotation,

reference of a natural world is juxtaposed with the naivety of

a people dependent upon it. People that live directly from its

land and don’t know any other landscape. People that can’t

explain the world around them.

I wonder how different are we from these people? Our western

neoliberal societies valued by information and data driven

systems. How much has illiteracy changed its meaning and

relevance? How much is this quote relevant to describe us?

How illiterate am I regarding the natural world that surrounds

me? My detachment to the land scares me, to know I can’t

read the signs of its needs. That I can’t protect it and reinvent

a path that can reunite us. In the self absorbed mirror infinity

we live in the History of Humanity does really feel like it starts

in each of us and ends in our own individual lives. This couldn’t

be more real unfortunately, the delusional believe that we only

need our own selves to thrive in life.

The artwork The sun rises every morning at the same place and

sets every evening at the opposite side is composed of several

elements: a site-specific textile work close to the water near

Fargfabriken, another textile piece at the Open studio space,

and photo documentation of Årstafältet, one of the largest

ongoing real estate developments in Stockholm. The fabric

pieces are dyed with found materials and natural pigments

from Årstafältet and the quote by Lamas is imprinted on them.

This work intends to be critical towards our view of nature,

the production of knowledge and the exploitation processes

that natural areas undergo, as most accessible nature is

either man made or developed for commercial and industry

purposes.Besides the textile pieces, video documentation of

the artwork in the water was also displayed at the exhibition

space.

234

ANA BARATA MARTINS

2. 3.

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235

HERE I AM.

SO GLAD YOU ARE.

PROJECT BY JUSTINAS DŪDĖNAS

Two-dimensional creatures in Vonnegut’s “The Sirens of

Titan” have all their physical needs secured. They know no

competition, no sex, no danger. So all they do is repeat to

each other the only two phrases which exist in their language:

"Here I am, here I am, here I am” and “So glad you are, so

glad you are, so glad you are."

It resembles the operation of GPS satellites, who constantly

chirp "My name is ABC" and "Time now is 123", a chatter

which lets us know our own positions on Earth. To orient

yourself is to map your relations, distances and directions.

So I devised an internal observatory. It resides hidden in a

piece of ice, which was noticed in Umeå by the R-Lab team,

conceived as multilayered model for circular time and melted

shortly after, some day in March 2019.

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Ice block in Umeå

existed on 27 March 2019

Geological map of IO

Photo of a photo of

“Cockroach” by Valdas

Ozarinskas displayed in Vilnius

CAC 2018

Ground-plan of the Diorama

Building, London 1823

Myrrhis Odorata collected and

catalogued by Anna Asplind on

24 May 2019

The ever-changing Vista by Neil

Spiller, 2008, Junk Jet No2

Ordinary Möbius strip

R-Lab team on 27 March

2019 observing a shopping

cart in a frozen Ume river.

Diagrams of shapes of

stories by Kurt Vonnegut

Proof that a single point in

space can spin continuously

without becoming tangled

Archer fi s h

Flat Earth map.

Orlando Ferguson, 1893

240

JUSTINAS DŪDĖNAS

241

BUILDING A NEW LANDSCAPE

PROJECT BY ELENA MAZZI

During my time at R-Lab I carried out several projects linked

to water: how we use it, how we deal with it, what are the

resources we have and how much we care about it. Some

of them have the form of proper artworks and are still in

process. Meanwhile, I have decided to open up a workshop

for children and teenagers that has been performed already

in several places. The workshop, titled ‘Building a new

landscape’, intended to start from a reflection on the crisis

situations and necessities related to the daily use of water,

encouraging participants to become aware of the hidden path

that water makes in our daily lives, such as in the architecture

we live every day, among these, the one we worked at in

Stockholm; Färgfabriken.

The following images are some of the structures that have

been created by the workshop participants.

Try to guess what they are!

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243

3.

2.

244

ELENA MAZZI

4. 5.

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245

THE WORD FOR WORLD IS

ENTANGLEMENT

STEP ONE: LIVING WITH THE ILLUSION

“There are stories that help us notice, and stories that get in

our way.” 1

PROJECT BY FLORENCE TACHÉ

Day One

Between 2014 and 2018, American artist Lars Jan and the

Early Morning Opera set up a series of performances called

Holoscenes [Image 1]. Situated in public space, an aquarium

like sculpture was alternatively filled with water and drained,

while inhabited by performers conducting everyday behaviour

- getting dressed, reading a newspaper, tuning a guitar, lying

in bed, … and barely transfiguring them, never showing any

sign of distress, despair or panic.

This work is one of many that reveals our ambivalence

towards the issues around climate change: we adapt, but we

don’t really care, trusting our technical genius to get us out

of it. We are resilient, a quality that could save us, but also

makes us remain indifferent. We get lost between a kind of

apocalypse rhetoric and its complementary end-of -the-worldsalvation

promises. We are going crazy precisely because we

know something is happening, but we can’t see it nor touch it,

nor experience it. Just as if we had collective myopia.

1. Anna Tsing, The Mushroom of the end of the world. On the possibility of

life in capitalist ruins. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015)

1.(Opposite) Image from the performance Holoscenes,

by Lars Jan and the Early Morning Opera (2018)

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Day Two

2. See for example: A.Canavie- chanvre wallon / video ad for the development of hemp culture (2018) www.youtube.com/F1q2kYvHw30

B. Skogsnäringen driver tillväxt i världens bioekonomi / video ad by Skogsindustrierna, (2015) www.youtube.com/aSWQEZeUK6A

C. Innovationer från skogen, ett alternativ till olja och plast / video ad by Svenska Skogen, (2018) www.youtube.com/seERny80KyU

D.Svenska Skogen – Här växer framtiden / video ad by Svenska Skogen, (2017) www.youtube.com/Dl94uL96650

Wandering in Stockholm and Paris metro this past year,

here are the kind of words I got exposed to through some

commercial campaigns that advertised seemingly “innovative”

and “sustainable” productions:

This forest is where your clothes grow… infinite resource…

everything that is made from oil can be made from the forest…

this endless life cycle…can be planted over and over again…

bio economy is an economy that is not based on consumption

but on cycles…many fantastic visionaries work to develop

bioeconomy…both growth and sustainability, at the same

time…the more we cut trees the more the forest grows… 2

What is not said here is as interesting as what is promoted:

The energy and water craving processes, land use, social

and territorial conditions of these sustainable products. In

other words, the encompassing webs of connections that

link our way of life to the silent violence of accumulation by

dispossession and environmental destruction.

Such “Green” narratives do not change a single thing in the

power games that rules this world. They still set everything’s

value on need and utility. They still rely on the illusion of infinite

resources and eternal growth - on mastery and possession.

They deny the fact that we live in a world of breaks and shocks.

They perpetuate the existing forms of domination and create

new forms of control.

One powerful characteristics of this system is that it creates

both the problem and its solution, over and over, preserving

the conditions of its survival along the way. The crisis we face

requires something different in kind, not just in degree.

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FLORENCE TACHÉ

2,3,4. Stills from Innovationer från skogen: ett alternativ till olja och plast (Innovations from the forest: an alternative to oil and plastic)

Video ad by Svenska Skogen, 2018. www.youtube.com/seERny80KyU

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249

3. www.businessinsider.fr/us/walmart-robot-bees-farming-patent-2018-3

4. Claire Colebrook, Death of the posthuman, essays on extinction, (London: Open Humanities Press, 2014)

5. Still from NewBees -- The future is already here. A video by Greenpeace international, 2014 www.youtube/CGTNjPow3LM

Day Three

Bees were among the first species that humans ever drew

on the walls of caves - along with now mythical aurochs and

mammoths. They are about to become the first species

we think we can replace by our own little robots, branded

Walmart robots, [3] or by a feather in the hands of some

modern slaves. Their usefulness created the conditions for

their replaceability. Technology has become a lure in such a

way.

“By the end of the world, we usually mean the end of our

world. What we don’t tend to ask is who gets included in the

“we”, what it costs to attain our world, and whether we were

entitled to such a world in the first place (…) “ By asking how

we will survive into the future, by anticipating an end unless

we adapt, we repress the question of whether the survival of

what has come to be known as life is something we should

continue to admit as the only accessible option […] What is

left of the human needs to confront the absence of value.” [4]

Robot bees don’t know how to make honey and wax, do they?

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FLORENCE TACHÉ

STEP TWO : THE THINNING OF THE VEIL

“You never know what is enough

Unless you know what is more than enough.”

William Blake, Proverbs of Hell.

We have built a world for ourselves, where there is no more

other. Not anyone, not anything on Earth is entitled the

recognition of being a part of our world, of co-making it with

us. Yet the world is not a pre-constituted entity to which life

must adapt. The world is a production of the living who are

part of it. On the other hand, the world is always an artifact

of another species.

To be in the world always means to be in touch with other

species. We live in a world designed by and for other living

species. One could even say that “There is no politics between

humans, but only between species.” 5

Still, it seems that only the children in our modern globalized

westernized world are allowed a connection of some kind to

animals, through books and lore. As soon as we are becoming

adults, “fully human”, we are denied the possibility of inhabiting

the same world. Shutting down non-humans from our everyday

life is practically a rite of passage towards entering the adult

community.

When we send animals in space,

they are on their own. They

always fly the preparatory ship

and rarely return. The best way

to realize that outer space as

humanity’s possibility of survival

is a lie, is to remember that we

can’t even imagine living with

dogs up there.

6. Laika the Soviet space dog, the first

animal to orbit the earth.

Image: Wikipedia

5. Emanuele Coccia, La vie des plantes, une métaphysique du mélange (Payot/Rivages, 2016)

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Maybe we need to re-learn to pay attention to the world we live

in. The rational thought that came to dominate the world from

the 19th century is today recognized as deeply connected

with global processes of industrialization, and consequently,

global warming. Not everything can be measured by rational

systems, though. We could try and see the alligator appearing

in the flooded streets of our cities 6 like a possibility, like one of

our entanglements to the place we live in, and not just as our

worst childhood nightmare come true. 7

Science-fiction and fantasy novelist Ursula Le Guin invited us

to do so, already a few decades ago:

6. www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-47112044

7. Dieter & Ingrid Schubert, There is a crocodile under my bed, (Lemniscaat,1980)

8. Ursula K. Le Guin, “Fantasy, like poetry, speaks the language of the night” in Dreams must

explain themselves, The Selected Non-Fiction of Ursula K Le Guin, (Gollancz, 2018)

“Those who refuse to listen to dragons are probably doomed

to spend their lives acting out the nightmare of politicians. We

like to think we live in daylight, but half the world is always dark;

and fantasy, like poetry, speaks the language of the night.” 8

STEP THREE: SEEING BEYOND THE DAMAGE:

BUILDING NEW NARRATIVES

The Sheep and the Metropolis

July 2019 : I’m joining for a day the Transhumance du Grand

Paris, a two-weeks long walk through Paris suburb with 24

sheep and their shepherds. A dozen people have joined and

we are acting like shepherd dogs, guiding the sheep through

the city. As simple an act as it is, we can quickly tell that it is

much more than a walk in summer heat with wooly animals.

In addition to questioning the place of agriculture in urbanized

areas, it also addresses territorial issues in a particular way.

Encounters. Smiles. Children and old people. Shared customs

and memories – did we know that fig tree leaves can be used

to turn the milk into cheese? Adapting both itinerary and pace,

through these familiar streets and parks, sheep walk at a

2km/h speed. Looking for water. Hacking a neighbourhood

252 FLORENCE TACHÉ

7,8. Images from Transhumance Grand Paris (July 2019). A two week walk

through Paris with 24 sheep and their shepherds.

(Image 7: Florence Taché. Image 8: Stéphane de Sacutin /AFP )

party, being offered juice – water in a children’s plastic pool

for the sheep. Talking with the shepherds, ideas emerge on

alternative ways to connect Paris with its suburbs. Why not

create a continuous network of pasture space around Paris,

allowing animals to wander from a city to another? They could

create bonds between different cities and people, as well as new

narratives and fantasies around which everyone can gather.

There are only 50 sheep in the whole metropolis today. Seeing

how efficient they are in cutting grass and hedges, but also in

making people engage with each other, I guess there could be

much more urban shepherds around Paris in the future.

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The Oysters and the Hurricane

When Henry Hudson entered New York Harbor in 1609, he

had to navigate around 220,000 acres of oyster reefs. As the

city developed, builders used oyster shells as a construction

material. They were one of the most popular street food in

the 19th century and a significant economic value for the city,

until overexploitation and a degraded water quality led to their

complete disappearance by the year 1906.

Brooklyn, 2013: A year after Hurricane Sandy, I hear about

people who have reintroduced oysters in the East River. 40

years after the Clean Water Act, New York Harbor remains

a massively degraded natural system, but oyster reefs have

the ability to transform it: they provide habitat for thousands

of marine species, filter water, and can help shield shorelines

from future storm damage.

9. Oyster and Clam Stand, New York (circa 1900).

As of June 2018, 9 active

oyster reefs (7acres), 3 floating

oyster hubs, and 27 475 800

oysters have been installed in

New York waterways. In 2035,

there should be a billion. It’s

even possible that by 2050, the

water will have regained good

enough quality for the oysters

to be considered edible. Similar

systems are to be developed in

Cape Cod and North Carolina.

Mussels have also been

implanted in the Bronx River. In

Europe, a dozen countries have

collaborated through NORA

(Native Oysters Restoration

Alliance) since 2017.

254

FLORENCE TACHÉ

We need to stop seeing the “Anthropocene” as a transient

state, when it actually is a new condition of instability and

unpredictability. We now live in a world of breaks and shocks.

Not everything will end well, and the crisis will hit some harder

than others, but we can learn to see viable places, even if they

are viable differently from what we know today. Both these

projects contradict the idea of Man as the absolute master

of his environment. Such collaborations between animals and

humans are significant examples of an integrated approach

to resiliency and proactive planning for climate change. If we

want to learn to live in damaged worlds, we need to stop

relying only on our ability to improve our technology ; we must

look for these “latent common”, temporary alliances mobilized

in a common cause, even if (and above all when) it implies

negotiating with other species. Making worlds is not just for

humans.

LANDING ON THE VOLCANO

The answers to our contemporary crisis we should not seek

in the fantasy of promising new techniques or open-toconquest

lands of outer space, when we can’t even figure how

to coexist with dogs there. We should first learn to rely on the

ground we already inhabit, to renegotiate our codependency

with our environments: the Earth is not inert but does things.

The archetypal manifestation of which are volcanoes, being

“sometimes calm, sometimes agitated” as Susan Sontag

would write. We need to learn to take this as a fact, and,

with Bruno Latour, make our priority to land on Earth. 9 Even

if it’s on a volcano.

In any case, we should not fear the disappearance of our

world, only the emergence of a world where the absence of

possibilities would be the norm. And remember: we can still

play cat’s cradle with a damaged string.

9. Bruno Latour, Où atterrir ? Comment s’orienter en politique, La Découverte, 2018.

***

PROJECTS

255



WHATSAPP GROUP CHAT IMAGES. 2018 - 2019

FOUND OBJECTS

257

GALLERY MOČVARA

(ZAGREB, CROATIA) IS RUNNING A THEMED

YEAR LONG PROGRAM IN 2019 ENTITLED

“COLLAPSE ON HOLD” ELABORATING THE IDEA

OF A CATASTROPHE.

This topic is not approached as necessarily dark and futuristic, but

is situated in the midst, between present and future. Fiction remains

on par with reality, marked by tensions, transformations, and new

hierarchies. Surviving in these times demands from the individuals to

revise their own attitudes, form new alliances, and overall act critically

and reflexively in relation to their past practices. This approach does

not force the complete renunciation of all that is known, but rather

articulates curiosity in the search for alternatives, reconciliation or

salvation.

Destruction of one's identity, awe for the power of nature, or giving

up on social polarization are just some of the tactics that attempt to

prevent catastrophe. Alternative scenarios that take into account local

specificities initiate a dialogue between local and foreign artists, revealing

their mutual inter-connections in times of change and uncertainty. There

are no final solutions, but merely attempts to address problems that

currently create optimism and a sense of security. This dialogue is

situated in the realm of the spiritual, virtual or speculative.

BETWEEN THE 10TH AND 16TH OF DECEMBER

2019 CURATOR LEA VENE TOGETHER WITH

R-LAB WILL TAKE OVER THE SPACES OF

GALLERY MOČVARA.

In the gallery and the surrounding suburban landscape defined by

the river Sava, they will put the collapse "on hold" and rethink new

possibilities for the coexistence of humans and architecture with

nature, ecology and other species.

www.g-mk.hr

THE RESEARCH AND DESIGN

THINK TANK YOU NEED

TO OUTLIVE THE

NORDIC HAZARDLANDS

LABLAB

LABLAB is a research and design think tank dedicated to the understanding of the

social, ecological and spatial transformations of the Nordic and Baltic Sea Region.

www.lablab.se

Teach Revolt: neo-liberalism and education

management is a manifesto, a warning, that

the neo-liberal re-organisation of higher level

education is shifting educational practice from

trained teaching staff to corporate managers.

The difference is worth noting, whereas

pedagogy was once considered the domain

of educators on the front line of education,

nowadays these educators are seeing their

positions diminished, limited or outright

closed by a growing cadre of management

professionals whose background

demonstrates little concern for learning

and learning experimentation.

Instead, we are witnessing the shift from

a passive form of questioning educational

practices to an active form of propagandising

management accomplishments, with the

toll falling on junior teaching staff, and

students, who no longer find benefit from

long term teaching visions. Everything

in this new paradigm becomes managed

through cherry picked trend setting outside

“master” professionals who come in

independently of the institution on limited

short term contracts.

JOIN THE RESISTANCE

www.r-lab.international

Personalia

Anna Asplind is a Choreographer and artist based in Malmö/Stockholm. Through close readings of places

with an experimental approach to the dialectic space and movement - how we are allowed to move through

different rooms and what movements are expected of us in different contexts - she makes visible and

embodies the ordinary in our gestures and actions. By highlighting a place’s history, its functions and

inherent social norms, Asplind questions how we view and use the site in the present.

Anna Risell is an Architect and artist based in Göteborg. Anna is interested in the subtle tones of dwelling,

which she searches for in places of everyday life. Her modes of expression and reflection include painting,

writing and more recently, video. The investigation of perception of space has in collaborative projects also

expanded into working with scenography. Although her projects often explore urban environments and

phenomena, initial investigations and reflections are heavily influenced by many hours spent in the woods.

Andres Villarreal is a visual artist and filmmaker who lives between Stockholm and Berlin. Andres received

their MFA from The Berlin University of the Arts in 2018 where they studied under Hito Steyerl and has

previously also studied sociology. Andres often deals with questions of how discourses and tropes emerge

and are cultivated in society, the relations between memory, representation and production of reality and

how these are narrated. The transformations of life in contemporary society through things like digitalization

and commercialization are of course important topics and their current research revolves around private

and urban spaces and how they are transformed and to what consequences. The work is often situated

in the borderland between fact and fiction. Andres is currently a fellow at the Whitney Independent Study

Program in New York City.

Bert Stoffels is an architect and junior researcher at KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture. His research is

focused on the connection between architecture and ideology. He graduated as a Master in Explorative

Architectural Design in 2016. He collaborated on research projects for the Ghent-based research cell ‘the

Drawing and the Space’ and worked with Alt-architectuur and NU architectuur atelier in Belgium.

Bo Pilo is an Interior architect based in Stockholm. Studied electroacoustic composition at EMS (2005),

post-graduate program Going Public, Konstfack (2012), MA in interior architecture, Konstfack (2014),

post-graduate program Research Lab - Architecture, Artifacts & Signs, KKH (2018). Current research

explores spatial cognition and behavioral manipulation. Collected study results are placed in semi-fictional

settings to amplify and sometimes skew the narrative.

Carlota Mir is a curator, researcher and cultural worker based between Stockholm and Vienna. She works

at the intersection between contemporary art, feminisms and social movements, art history, architecture

and critical heritage in a variety of formats – curatorial, pedagogic, academic, editorial, domestic – that

tend to hybridize and become something new. She currently combines her research in the PhD programme

in Philosophy at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna with curatorial work on two artistic programmes in

Sweden: ‘My Friend is Here’ and ‘Girls Always Play in Twos’. The projects aim to develop new modes of

artistic knowledge production and exhibition, as well as building feminist networks of affect which can inspire

and sustain collective action.

Elena Mazzi is a Visual artist based in Venice. Her poetics deals with the relationship between man and the

environment he lives in and has to reckon with in everyday life. Mostly following an anthropological approach,

this analysis investigates and documents an identity both personal and collective, relating to a specific

territory, and giving rise to different forms of exchange and transformation.

Florence Taché is an architect based in Paris where she has been working both as an independent and

within architectural offices (including Dumont Legrand Architectes and Patrick Bouchain). Her practice

explores ways in which architecture can be designing situations as much as designing buildings. This

includes practical and research-based work investigating the contemporary tensions between production

and resources, collaborative ways of making those “situations” happen, and how narratives contribute to

our relationship to our environment. She also worked on scenography and exhibition design projects, as well

as some small scale comics production.

266


Gerda Persson is an architect, living and working in Stockholm. She studied in Stockholm and Mendrisio,

Switzerland and graduated from KTH school of architecture in 2014. Her research of this year is based

on an interest in how our history and physical environment is created by what stories are told and how

they are valued.

Gustav Karlsson is a planning architect based in Stockholm. He’s the founder of the spatial research

studio Scapeous (2011) and Urbanunplanning.com (2013). Karlsson orientate practically and theoretically

within spatial planning issues using speculative design methods to investigate urban and rural phenomena.

Current fields of interest stretches from growing and shrinking habitats, High-Tech Ruralism, extrasensory

perception, the collective (un)consciousness and The Realm of Real Fantasy.

Jérôme Malpel is an architect and curator based in Stockholm and Paris. He graduated from the School

of Architecture in Marne-La-Vallée in the studio Théorie & Projets under the direction of Jacques Lucan

and Eric Lapierre in 2013. He has been working in São Paulo (Triptyque), Buenos Aires (Alejandro Sticotti)

and Stockholm (Elding Oscarson, Kjellander Sjöberg) and was part of Curator Lab at Konstfack University

in Stockholm under the direction of Joanna Warsza (2016-2017) He co-founded the architecture gallery

Desplans in 2015, exhibiting sketches and drawings of international architects. He has curated exhibitions

in Paris (Pavillon de l’Arsenal) and Stockholm (Alma).

Justinas Dūdėnas was born and based in Vilnius, trained as an architect and semiotician and graduated

in “Rupert” Alternative Education Program. With an emphasis on spatial narratives, Justinas has initiated

public projects such as urban river-ferry “Uperis” and a podcast for public space and architecture “Aikštėje”.

He is currently co-running an office for exhibition design “Centras ir Institutas”.

Lea Vene is an art historian and cultural anthropologist. She works as a curator in the gallery Miroslav

Kraljević in Zagreb, Croatia. She was one of the organizers of ETNOFILm - festival of ethnographic film where

she curated film, exhibition and educational programs. Vene curates different exhibition and conference

programs as part of the International photography festival - Organ Vida. She is also a lecturer at the Faculty

of Textile Technology in Zagreb.

Orestis Nikolaidis is an Architect, editor, and cultural agent based in Vienna. He combines his interest in

participatory-based design projects on the threshold between art and architecture with work as an interior

architect. During his first year in Research Lab, he conducted a research-based project addressing issues

such as digital memory infrastructure and contemporary image while on his second year he focused on

the future of AI and the post-work society. He has been a board member of the architectural experimental

platform 255 since 2011 and was the director in 2016. He is a co-founder of the architectural collective

Madstock and has been organising the interdisciplinary architectural festival Bellastock for three consecutive

years. He was part of the curating team of the exhibition Ni Arte Ni Educación in Matadero Madrid in 2016.

Sofia Larsson is a Landscape architect and interdisciplinary artist based in Stockholm. Her research

interests are materializations of values, identities and power structures in spatial organization and

architecture. In extending her role as a landscape architect Larsson explores ways of pursuing alternative

practices and questions existing paradigms within the architect’s line of business.

Veronica Skeppe is an architect and founding partner of the collaborative practice Brrum. She is a lecturer

in architecture at the Royal Institute of Technology / KTH in Stockholm and has previously taught at

Konstfack / University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. In her work she seeks potential

for design experimentations in the intersection between materials, technology and representations. Recent

work has focused on histories of materials and how the aesthetic and political understanding of them have

shifted through time.

Victoria van Kan is an architect and photographer based in Brussels. Currently she is a part of Rotor

Deconstruction, a collective researching the possibilities of reuse in architecture. Beside she is exploring

the representation of the ordinary, or cruel banality, trough drawing, photography and video.

Åsa Agerstam is an Interior architect and designer based in Stockholm graduating from Konstfack in

2012. Through a philosophical and experience-based starting point, she uses a hands on approach in

research, where she often investigates the everyday materiality that surrounds us to discover new ways

of relating to it.

PERSONALIA

267

Filmography

Filmography: (basic running

themes: love story or reunion

with single parents and their

kids while volcano or earthquake

erupts, science of prediction

where guys get to rescue or

blow up threats, and religious

or spiritual themes, the dog,

and animals, mass extinction

events, Molochs, the Pompeii

films—the Last Days of Pompeii,

use the Vesuvius for their

films’ spectacular finales, a

sort of Deus-ex-machina, to an

otherwise straightforward and

rather dated Christian vs. pagan

love stories..

Stromboli, Terra di Dio, (Stromboli, Land of God).

Directed by Roberto Rossellini.

Starring Ingrid Bergman.

Released in 1950.

Dr. Strangelove, or I Learned to Stop

Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Starring Peter Sellers.

Released in 1964

Soylent Green.

Directed by Richard Fleischer.

Starring Charlton Heston, and Edward G.

Robinson,

Released in 1973.

Logan’s Run.

Directed by Michael Anderson.

Starring Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Richard

Jordan, Roscoe Lee Browne, Farrah Fawcett,

and Peter Ustinov.

Released in 1976

Stalker (Сталкер).

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky

Starring Alexander Kaidanovsky, Anatoly

Solonitsyn and Nikolai Grinko.

Released in 1979 (restored version: 2017)

Dante’s Peak.

Directed by Roger Donaldson.

Starring Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton,

Charles Hallahan, Elizabeth Hoffman, Jamie

Renée Smith, Jeremy Foley and Grant Heslov.

Released in 1997

Volcano.

Directed by Mick Jackson.

Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche, and

Don Cheadle

Released in 1997

Deep Impact.

Directored by Mimi Leader.

Starring Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni, Elijah Wood,

Vanessa Redgrave, Maximilian Schell, and

Morgan Freeman.

Released in 1998.

268


The Core.

Directed by Jon Amiel.

Starring Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Delroy

Lindo, Stanley Tucci, Tchéky Karyo, DJ Qualls.

Released in 2003

The Day After Tomorrow.

Directed by Roland Emmerich.

Starring Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ian Holm

Released in 2004

The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Directed by Scott Derrickson

Starring Keanu Reeves.

Released in 2008,

Tidal Wave Haeunde ().

Directed by Yoon Je-kyoon

Starring Sol Kyung-gu, Ha Ji-won, Park Joonghoon

and Uhm Jung-hwa.

Released in 2009

Knowing.

Directed by Alex Proyas

Starring Nicolas Cage.

Released in 2009

2012.

Directed by Roland Emmerich.

Starring John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor,

Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton,

Danny Glover and Woody Harrelson.

Released in 2009

Into Eternity.

Directed by Michael Madsen.

Released in 2010.

Melancholia.

Directed by Lars von Trier

Starring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg,

Alexander Skarsgård, Cameron Spurr, and

Kiefer Sutherland.

Released in 2011.

The Impossible.

Directed by J. A. Bayona,

Starring Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor and

Tom Holland.

Released in 2012

Beasts of the Southern Wild.

Directed by Benh Zeitlin

Starring Quvenzhané Wallis and Dwight Henry.

Released in 2012

World War Z.

Directed by Marc Forster.

Starring Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella

Kertesz, James Badge Dale, Ludi Boeken,

Fana Mokoena, David Morse, Peter Capaldi.

Released in 2013.

Pompeii.

Directed by Paul W. S. Anderson.

Starring Kit Harington, Emily Browning,

Carrie-Anne Moss, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje,

Jessica Lucas, with Jared Harris, and Kiefer

Sutherland.

Released in 2014

San Andreas.

Directed by Brad Peyton

Starring Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy

Passmore.

Released in 2015

Into the Inferno.

Directed by Werner Herzog.

Released in 2016.

Pandora (.

Directed by Park Jung-woo.

Starring Kim Nam-Gil,

Released in 2016

7:19.

Directed by Jorge Michel Grau

Starring Demián Bichir, Pellicer Héctor Bonilla.

Released in 2016.

Annihilation.

Directed by Alex Garland,

Starring Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason

Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Tuva

Novotny, and Oscar Isaac.

Released in 2018.

FILMOGRAPHY

269

Bibliography

“You could hear the shrieks of

women, the wailing of infants,

and the shouting of men; some

were calling their parents,

others their children or their

wives, trying to recognise them

by their voices. People bewailed

their own fate or that of their

relatives, and there were some

who prayed for death in their

terror of dying. Many besought

the aid of the gods, but still

more imagined there were no

gods left, and that the universe

was plunged into eternal

darkness for evermore.”

Pliny the Elder, describing the

conditions after the eruption of

the Vesuvius. AD 79.

PRIMARY READINGS

Susan Sontag, The Volcano Lover

(London: Penguin, 2009)

Susan Sontag haunts this course. On

collecting volcanos, climbing the peaks of

death, miracles, the distinction between

disasters like a cold winter, vs. disasters that

constantly loom over the landscape, and yes,

the French Revolution.

Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise

of Disaster Capitalism

(London: Picador, 2008)

Everything you ever wanted to know about how

we came to live inside the “iron cage” of neoliberalism

(see Max Weber’s The Protestant

Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism)

FURTHER FICTION READINGS:

Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano, (original

publication date: 1947)

A good thesis on human fragility.

Endo Shusaku, Richard A. Schuchert trans,

Volcano, a novel. (original publication date:

1972)

Very biblical.

H.G. Wells, Time Machine (original


Read this and try to wonder how H.G. Wells

good have figured this all out already more

than a hundred years ago.

Stanisław Lem, Solaris (original publication

date: 1970)

A true cult classic, can be related to current

Gaia theories, but an amazing novel, and an

amazing satire on academic science.

270


NON-FICTION

Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise Built in Hell:

the Extraordinary Communities that Arise in

Disaster (London: Penguin Books, 2010)

Nathaniel Rich, Losing Earth: The Decade

We Almost Stopped Climate Change (New

York Times, 2018) www.nytimes.com

Recommended by Anna Risell.

Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (original


Jared Diamond, Collapse, How Societies

Choose to Fail Succeed (London, Viking

Press, 2005)

On what it takes for a society to cut down the

last tree in the forest.

Donna Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs and

Women: the Reivention of Nature (original

publication dates, between 1978 and 1989.

Susanna M. Hoffman, Anthony Oliver-

Smith ed.s, Catastrophe and Culture: the

Anthropology of Disaster (London, Oxford,

2002)

Emanuel Kant, On the causes of earthquakes

on the occasion of the calamity that befell

the western countries of Europe towards the

end of last year (original publication date:

1756)

Good to know we could have done something

about our current climate change mess quite

some time ago.

Paul Virilio, The Original Accident (Boston:

Polity 2007)

Peter Lang, Stalker Unbounded: Urban

Activism and the Terrain Vague as

Heterotopia by Default Editors: Lieven De

Cauter, Michiel Dehaene Heterotopia and

the City: Public Space in Postcivil Society

(London: Routledge, 2008),

On the work of Stalker, the Rome based urban

arts group

Peter Lang, Stalker on Location, in Karen

A. Franck, Quentin Stevens, ed.s, Loose

Space: Possibility And Diversity In Urban Life

(London: Routledge, 2006)

On the work of Stalker, the Rome based urban

arts group

Further Readings:

Andreas Killen Nitzan Lebovic Ed.s,

Catastrophes: A History and Theory of

an Operative Concept (Berlin: Walter de

Gruyter, 2014)

Superstudio, 12 Ideal Cities (AD Magazine,

1971, December)

—an excellent demonstration on how to write

the future of architecture

On how we understand accidents, states

of exception, risk and prognostics, not to

mention the ‘last man.’ see chapters: Andreas

Killen, Nitzan Lebovic, “Introduction,” Eva

Horn, “The Last Man: the Birth of Modern

Apocalypse in Jean Paul, John Martin and

Lord Byron,” Andreas Killen, “Accidents

happen: The Industrial Accident in Industrial

Germany,” Matthias Dörries, “Anticipating the

Climate Catastrophe.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY

271

Marvels and Catastrophes

R-LAB: Mavels and Catastrophes was

produced during the academic year 2018-

2019 within the Architectural Theory and

History course at the Royal Institute of Art,

Stockholm

Program Director

Peter Lang, Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm

The Art of Disaster Interruptive Workshop,

Istanbul: Ayse Erek, Aslı Kıyak Ingin, and

Serkan Taycan

Craftsmen: Artin Aharon (Harunlar Mekanik),

Mustafa Yasak (Yasa Oyma), Ismail Hız (Mert

Torna), Zafer Ugurluol (Ugurlu Neon), Tur

Reklam

Participants

Åsa Agerstam, Anna Asplind, Emre Aydilek,

Ana Barata Martins, Justinas Dudénas, Carlota

Mir, Gustav Karlsson, Sofia Larsson, Jérôme

Malpel, Elena Mazzi, Orestis Nikolaidis, Gerda

Persson, Bo Pilo, Anna Risell, Veronica Skeppe,

Bert Stoffels, Florence Taché, Victoria van Kan,

Lea Vene, Andres Villarreal

Contributors

Dougald Hine, Jennifer Rainsford, James

Taylor Foster, Behzad Khosravi, Isabel Löfgren,

Malin Heyman, James Hamilton,

Editors

Peter Lang and Matthew Ashton

Design

Matthew Ashton (www.sp-arc.se)

Art Consultant

Vesna Salamon

Credits

Färgfabriken: Daniel Urey, Karin Englund

Hinterlands + is a LABLAB public program

on the frontier of mental and spatial change

in the Swedish - German countryside(s).

Hinterlands + is funded by the Goethe Institute

Schweden.

Special guest for the Hinterlands + program in

Umeå was Martina Doehler-Behzadi, Director

of IBA Thüringen Germany. Her presentation

was on Stadtland or Countryside Nostalgia.

UMA Umeå: Ana Betancourt (rector),

Marie Kraft, (Instructor)

With invited guest Madeleine Eriksson (UMU)

Bildmuseet: Anders Jansson.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Magnus Ercisson, Susann Löfberg,

Åsa Andersson, Alessandro Petti, Sandi Hilal,

Kim West, Katarina Nitsch, Torun Hammar,

Sophie Tottie, Christina Pech, Pelin Tan, Peter

Geschwind, Roemer Van Toorn, Christoph

Draeger, Sigrid Sandström, Thordis Arrhenius,

Frances Hsu, Alexander Marek, Daniel Urey,

Marie Kraft, James Taylor Foster,

All images associated with individual research

projects are copyright of the author, unless

otherwised referenced.

About the type

Eurostile was designed by Aldo Novarese in

1962 for Nebiolo Type Foundry in Turin. It

became particularly popular in science fiction

literature and films produced in the 1960s and

1970s, used for the credits of several early

seasons of Doctor Who, as well as extensively

used on props throughout Stanley Kubrik’s

1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Px437 IBM is a font based on Code Page 437;

the character set of the original IBM personal

computer. This character set remains the

primary core of any EGA and VGA compatible

graphics card.

Printed and bound in Latvia by Livonia Print

First edition 250 copies

ISBN 978-91-519-2347-5

School of Schools, Istanbul Design Biennial:

Jan Boelen, Vera Sacchetti, Eylul Senses

www.marvelsandcatastrophes.com

272

MARVELS AND CATASTROPHES

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