Breaking Ground, the Per Cent for art programme for Ballymun, Dublin, Ireland. |
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| Breaking Ground, the percent for art programme for Ballymun Regeneration Limited, was launched in Ballymun in February 2002. To date Breaking Ground has launched some of the most significant, diverse and challenging public art projects in the history of the Irish State, and as such is widely recognised as the flagship for contemporary public art projects in Ireland. Breaking Ground has commissioned a huge variety of contemporary art projects, from permanent light works by artists such Corban Walker, to large scale temporary projects such as Seamus Nolan's 'Hotel Ballymun', which saw an abandoned tower block converted into a short stay hotel for one month. Breaking Ground is committed to being a continual and progressive resource within the local community. Breaking Ground is also keen to create intelligent debate and discussion about contemporary art, challenging perceptions about what can be achieved within communities. As such Breaking Ground has 2 key aims: to bring attention nationally and internationally to projects organised within Ballymun; and to expand and enrich the lives of communities through experiences with contemporary art. Breaking Ground is currently nearing the end of its second phase of commissions, and will launch artworks in Autumn 2008 by artists such as Cecily Brennan, John Byrne, Kevin Atherton and Martin Healy. Contact website: www.breakingground.ie |
6 June 2008
Hotel Ballymun
Summer Festivals
Breathing Places Festival - Brooke Park: Derry
Sun 2nd August
Time: 1pm - 5pm
Join us in historic Brooke Park and be inspired by the lovely city council Wildlife Garden - an entry in the Ireland Garden Show. Try your hand at making some of the wildlife features from the garden, or go for a guided walk, talk to gardening experts and enjoy music, food and children's activities.
2 June 2008
URBAN/ ACT. Monday, 2 June, 6pm @ PS²
Presentation and talk of URBAN/ ACT, a handbook for creative urban actions.
Speakers: Doina Petrescu (aaa) and Fiona Woods (Ground Up).
Time: 6pm @ PS²
Launch of a new handbook of contemporary urban practice from across europe (tactical, situational and active) -considered in relation to ongoing work on creative rural practices in Ireland.
URBAN / ACT, edited by aaa (atelier d’architecture autogérée), Paris/2007 ISBN 978-2-9530751-0-6 is the outcome of a series of discussions and collaborations with a number of groups from France, Belgium, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Holland, Spain, Croatia, Slovenia and Canada.
The practices presented include artist groups, media activists, cultural workers, software designers, architects, students, researchers, neighbourhood organisations, city dwellers. Most of these groups are usually catalogued as local and their position is minimalised as such, but in fact they are highly specific and have the quality of reinventing uses and practices in ways that traditional professional structures cannot afford (due to their generic functioning). Their ways of being local are complex and multilayered, involving participation and local expertise as well as extra-local collaborations. They reinvent contemporary urban practice as tactical, situational and active, based on soft professional and artistic skills and civic informal structures, which can adapt themselves to changing urban situations that are critical, reactive and creative enough to produce real change.
URBAN/ACT focuses mainly on groups in cities and their activities in a dense urban environment, representing a dominance and assumed monopoly of city culture. In the predominantely rural context of Ireland, does the urban act need to change its methods and strategies; does rural act mean a slower pace, from hardedge challenging to organic soft and comforting? Fiona Woods will analyse examples of creative rural practice in Ireland and re-balance the citycentricity with a RURAL/ACT appendix.
Doina Petrescu is reader in architecture at the University of Sheffield. She has written, lectured and practised individually and collectively on issues of gender, technology, (geo)politics and poetics of space. Together with Constantin Petcou, she is founder member of atelier d’architecture autogérée (aaa) and has also been an activist with local associations in UK, France Romania and Senegal and feminist research groups such as association (des pas) in Paris and taking place in London. Editor of Altering Practices: Feminist Politics and Poetics of Space (London: Routledge, 2007) and co-editor of Architecture and Participation (London: Routledge, 2005) . The aaa collective initiated and edited URBAN/ACT.
atelier d’architecture autogérée / studio of self-managed architecture (aaa) is a collective platform, which conducts actions and research concerning urban mutations and cultural, social and political emerging practices in the contemporary city. http://www.urbantactics.org
Fiona Woods is a visual artist; her practice includes curating and writing. For the last number of years her work has focused on questions of art and public space in non-metropolitan contexts. Recent commissions include Imagining Silvermines; a psychogeography (as visual-artist-in-residence for North Tipperary, 2007) and a collaborative R&D residency for Grizedale Arts, UK (ongoing). She devised and curated the Ground Up programme of public art in rural contexts for Clare Arts Office and co-devised the Shifting Ground partnership project between Clare Arts Office and GMIT. She is editor of the forthcoming publication Ground Up; re-positioning art in the context of the rural (2008). www.shiftingground.net
To read/ download URBAN/ACT on the web, see http://www.peprav.net/tool/spip.php?rubrique30
27 May 2008
Ardoyne Youth Club
Duncan and I are facilitating a workshop in Ardoyne the aim of which is to repaint the entrance to the centre with the groups and Youth Workers ideas.
25 May 2008
Natasja Boeze and Others
The backyard hooch
The original(& smallest) backyard hooch. A 6' by 6' floor area provides just enough room for a sleep out. The single point foundation does not impede on limited backyard space. Cables to surrounding trees make the hooch extremely stable.
Medaillons in Trees
A small wood, planted with beech trees, was recently laid out on the property of ’s Koonings Jaght. Boezem hung ten oval portrait medallions on these trees at varying heights with the help of steel clasps. Both sides of the medallions feature photographic portraits of twenty different residents of the institute. The faces are set against a brightly colored background and each medallion is fitted with a light and a speaker. The sounds that the speakers transmit are, among others, made up of residents telling stories, playing the piano or singing. The sounds are usually not directly linked to one of the portraited individuals.
From a central location in the forest a mechanism can be activated that causes the medallions to light up, either in a set series or in random order. The sounds displace themselves according to their own pattern and are independent of the light pattern. In this way the wood becomes a crisscross of patterns with illuminated photo portraits and the murmuring voices of residents.
Natasja Boezem’s work functions in a variety of ways. As visitors to the ’s Koonings Jaght set foot on the premises, they are immediately introduced to its residents. These, in turn, give a proud impression to the visitors since it is their park and their home.
Visitors may also experience the work on different levels. Strong visual impulses are elicited by the colorful medallions, the lights that flicker on and off in different locations and the recognition of the people on the portraits. The sounds also have a powerful effect. In one place a singing voice is heard, in another someone is playing the piano and in yet another someone is telling a story. For some listeners the recognition of the sound is also a contributing factor. Through the continual flickering of light and displacing of sound, the residents’ environment is enriched with an inviting ambience. Furthermore it is an exciting experience for residents to press the button that activates the light.
In creating this work, Natasja Boezem was inspired by the history of art. During the Renaissance medallions were fixed to the ‘Palazzi’ of well-known families (such as the Strozzi, De Medici and Becai families). These medallions were made by artists and featured portraits of the ‘Palazzis’ residents who proudly displayed themselves to the general public, thereby expressing their power and influence. Incidentally we also have a similar tradition in Northern Europe in the form of portrait galleries.
Koonings Jaght and Het Dorp, which are both located in Arnhem, are a part of the Siza Dorp Groep, an organization that supports disabled individuals. More than 1,600 individuals who are physically or mentally disabled or have non-hereditary brain damage are cared for by 2,500 staff members who work in over 60 locations in Gelderland.
www.sizadorpgroep.nl
‘The Unknown Image’ by Allen Ruppersberg (photo: Ton Aartsen)
Beyond-Leidsche Rijn: Parasite Paradise
From 1 August until late September 2003 Leidsche Rijn held the exhibition, Parasite Paradise. Near to the Leidsche Rijn’s Information Center, which is located on the Verlengde Vleutenseweg, one could visit a settlement made up of around twenty mobile units. These units were created by domestic and international artists and represent small-scale, artistic, architectural and urban developmental works that make a playful yet serious comment on systematic urbanization.
Miele Space Station, 2012 Architecten (photo: Ralph Kämena)
The original(& smallest) backyard hooch. A 6' by 6' floor area provides just enough room for a sleep out. The single point foundation does not impede on limited backyard space. Cables to surrounding trees make the hooch extremely stable.
Medaillons in TreesA small wood, planted with beech trees, was recently laid out on the property of ’s Koonings Jaght. Boezem hung ten oval portrait medallions on these trees at varying heights with the help of steel clasps. Both sides of the medallions feature photographic portraits of twenty different residents of the institute. The faces are set against a brightly colored background and each medallion is fitted with a light and a speaker. The sounds that the speakers transmit are, among others, made up of residents telling stories, playing the piano or singing. The sounds are usually not directly linked to one of the portraited individuals.
From a central location in the forest a mechanism can be activated that causes the medallions to light up, either in a set series or in random order. The sounds displace themselves according to their own pattern and are independent of the light pattern. In this way the wood becomes a crisscross of patterns with illuminated photo portraits and the murmuring voices of residents.
Natasja Boezem’s work functions in a variety of ways. As visitors to the ’s Koonings Jaght set foot on the premises, they are immediately introduced to its residents. These, in turn, give a proud impression to the visitors since it is their park and their home.
Visitors may also experience the work on different levels. Strong visual impulses are elicited by the colorful medallions, the lights that flicker on and off in different locations and the recognition of the people on the portraits. The sounds also have a powerful effect. In one place a singing voice is heard, in another someone is playing the piano and in yet another someone is telling a story. For some listeners the recognition of the sound is also a contributing factor. Through the continual flickering of light and displacing of sound, the residents’ environment is enriched with an inviting ambience. Furthermore it is an exciting experience for residents to press the button that activates the light.
In creating this work, Natasja Boezem was inspired by the history of art. During the Renaissance medallions were fixed to the ‘Palazzi’ of well-known families (such as the Strozzi, De Medici and Becai families). These medallions were made by artists and featured portraits of the ‘Palazzis’ residents who proudly displayed themselves to the general public, thereby expressing their power and influence. Incidentally we also have a similar tradition in Northern Europe in the form of portrait galleries.
Koonings Jaght and Het Dorp, which are both located in Arnhem, are a part of the Siza Dorp Groep, an organization that supports disabled individuals. More than 1,600 individuals who are physically or mentally disabled or have non-hereditary brain damage are cared for by 2,500 staff members who work in over 60 locations in Gelderland.
www.sizadorpgroep.nl
‘The Unknown Image’ by Allen Ruppersberg (photo: Ton Aartsen)Beyond-Leidsche Rijn: Parasite Paradise
From 1 August until late September 2003 Leidsche Rijn held the exhibition, Parasite Paradise. Near to the Leidsche Rijn’s Information Center, which is located on the Verlengde Vleutenseweg, one could visit a settlement made up of around twenty mobile units. These units were created by domestic and international artists and represent small-scale, artistic, architectural and urban developmental works that make a playful yet serious comment on systematic urbanization.
Miele Space Station, 2012 Architecten (photo: Ralph Kämena)
Playgrounds in Hoogvliet
Report of a workshop on Playgrounds in Hoogvliet
A large portion of Holland’s available housing is located in the large-scale, quickly-built modern residential areas that were built shortly after the Second World War and are, meanwhile, in need of massive renovation. Such a large-scale renovation of postwar residential areas forces one to contemplate the use of public space. The method used with Rotterdam’s residential area, Hoogvliet, is a good example of this. It is one of the first projects that SKOR was involved in. The study ‘The World is my Playground’ unites theory and practice, creating a scenario for the development of a ‘play network’. The project approaches the playground from a town planning perspective and aims to put the matter of designing a playground high on the agenda. Hoogvliet served as one of their case studies.
SKOR contributed by organizing a workshop that took place on 13 and 14 December. Gatherings of people from diverse fields of expertise were invited to come up with ideas for the potentialities and different functions of the open space in general and, more specifically, for playgrounds. Participants of the workshop included legal philosopher Gijs van Oenen (University of Rotterdam), ecologist Matthijs Schouten (University of Wageningen) and visual artists Dan Peterman (Chicago), Ingo Vetter (Berlin) and Nils Norman (London). Together with Hoogvliet’s administrators and officials, the Playgrounds researchers and SKOR’s representatives, they explored the parks and nine districts that make up Hoogvliet and took part in a round table discussion.
Recently artist Nils Norman did research on what he personally calls ‘adventure playgrounds’. These are playgrounds that offer a large amount of space for unforeseen usage. He delved into the history of the development of playgrounds since the 1930’s and made sketches of this. Recently in the late modernist town planning - particularly in England and Germany – playgrounds that have been designed and furnished by children are being realized. However, due to increasing liability issues and regulations it is becoming increasingly difficult to assign children a role in the design process. According to Norman the foremost meaning of these places is that of the ‘ecological niche’ as they are often valuable habitats that hardly change during extended periods of time. Only their surroundings alter.
Ingo Vetter studied two places that had been ‘squatted’ and serve as examples of spontaneous urban agriculture. One of these was an undeveloped plot of land close to the Berlin Wall that was already squatted back in 1971. It was here that a type of children’s farm emerged as a result of the surrounding inhabitants who started keeping chickens, goats and pigs etc. on the property. The area was used by a variety of groups at varying times and the users themselves performed the maintenance. The other example is the dilapidated and deserted city center of Detroit. After the collapse of the automobile industry when nobody took responsibility for the inner city anymore, it was only the poor who continued to live in this neighborhood while the rich departed for the suburbs. People began to farm the unclaimed land not in order to survive but, rather, as a symbolic statement that demonstrated that this was their land and that they would use it as such. Based on these examples, Vetter would rather have no physical products developed for Hoogvliet that fix the land’s usage but, instead, create conditions that allow exceptional and unforeseen usage.
Dan Peterman is more interested in the organic processes of urban society than in the isolated concept of the ‘playground’. He is a long time resident of Chicago and lives on the border of a wealthy area and an underprivileged neighborhood. Like an isolated enclave, the University of Chicago is located next to this area. After his studies at the art faculty of this university, Peterman joined a group that created all kinds of artistic interventions that served to improve the neighborhood and its community life. He was, among others, involved in the establishment of shops that recycle materials. Peterman is mainly interested in the conditions that instigate all kinds of processes that are, in turn, added to the existing local complexity. With his interventions he consistently makes use of the available resources and the existing conditions. In this way, Peterman tries to find alternative models for developing and stimulating organic processes that are in contrast to systematic processes in which everything has been predetermined.
According to ecologist Matthijs Schouten - who, in addition to his ecological research also researched the perception of landscape – there are basically two types of distinguishable landscapes: the natural landscape and the semi-natural landscape. The first type includes ‘wild’ nature whereas the second type is represented by the (agri) cultural landscape. He connects both types to the Nietzchian dichotomy of Dionysian vs. Apollonian. In this way the first is natural and unconnected to space and time and the second is semi-natural, having come forth through the interaction with humans. The latter type which is connected to space and time, gives one a sense of harmony and serenity. In other words the relation between the geomorphology and the history of habitation is imaginable and the landscape can be read like a book. According to Schouten, the riverbank forest that surrounds Hoogvliet refers to the Dionysian landscape whereas the old village center (formerly a fishing port) refers to the Apollonian landscape with its recognizable topographical human touches including the dyke, the church and the pattern of streets. In Hoogvliet he distinguishes a third type, namely, the rational landscape. Schouten suggests that many of the green open spaces that are hardly used as public spaces should be better utilized in order to allow new experiences to come about. In doing so, one should make use of the geomorphology so that the landscape can become readable again.
Philosopher Gijs van Oenen does not agree with the basic principle of Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens and he considers this book to be old-fashioned and boring. In his opinion, people do not essentially need to ‘play’. One should actually see playing as a specific feature that can offer a solution to certain issues and problems in contemporary society. As such he considers Nieuw Babylon (New Babylon), which is based on Huizinga’s homo ludens concept, to be a good example of a bad idea. On the basis of Huizinga’s book the artist, Constant, differentiates between two domains, namely, the domain in which the production of necessities is realized and the domain of free time or relaxation. According to Gijs van Oenen this dichotomy becomes highly problematic when there is no connection between the two domains. In the town planning of the 1960s and 1970s, the divisions between working, living and free time bore significant consequences. Public and private functions were divided, separated and, literally, worked out on different levels. The Bijlmer is a famous example of this and, in Hoogvliet, this disconnection of different domains can also be seen. According to Gijs van Oenen one should not view ‘playing’ as the highest level but, rather, as a possibility to connect different levels with each other, similar to the negotiations that take place between the public and private aspects of life.
Since the 1970s, people have become more individualistic. They no longer form a homogenous community but are, instead, autistic and behave as such. Van Oenen distinguishes three types of behaviors that are related to how people envisage themselves in the public space.
1. Nimby (not in my backyard): You are not involved. You appreciate public affairs but you cannot accept the negative consequences thereof. It’s all very well as long as it doesn’t bother you.
2. Capsular (see the publication Lieven de Cauter, De Capsulaire Samenleving, NAi Uitgevers): People who withdraw from public space and act as if they are not actually in it. An example is someone wearing a walkman in a train.
3. Interpassive: You notice your surroundings but are, simultaneously, connected to your personal life. An example is someone using their cell phone in the train. You are aware of the public life but, because you are in connection with your private life, you don’t have (or want) any interaction with it. These three phenomena have dramatically altered the public space. Gijs van Oenen proposes transitional spaces or ‘playgrounds’ that are informal and can forge a connection between the public and private life. The creating of this is, in itself, a type of game.
'The world is my playground' was made possible with the contribution of the Stimuleringsfonds voor Architectuur (Stimulation Fund for Architecture).
Check out www.speelwereld.nl and www.dollab.nl (click on ‘werk’ and ‘playgrounds’)
Architect Henk Doll - Playground
The design is based on a model of a world city, which has been made by children of the asylum seekers centre in Feilenoord and has been exposed in Villa Zebra. This model takes part in the education program Raise it up! which Gasia Grubba and Judith Varwerk have set up with the goal to let asylum seekers' children get to know the architecture from their home country and Rotterdam. The project is a great success. In the model of the world city 12 children have designed and created buildings in which different cultures are integrated. The goal of the Raise it up! - world playground is to design a distinguishing playground with references to different cultural statements.
A large portion of Holland’s available housing is located in the large-scale, quickly-built modern residential areas that were built shortly after the Second World War and are, meanwhile, in need of massive renovation. Such a large-scale renovation of postwar residential areas forces one to contemplate the use of public space. The method used with Rotterdam’s residential area, Hoogvliet, is a good example of this. It is one of the first projects that SKOR was involved in. The study ‘The World is my Playground’ unites theory and practice, creating a scenario for the development of a ‘play network’. The project approaches the playground from a town planning perspective and aims to put the matter of designing a playground high on the agenda. Hoogvliet served as one of their case studies.
SKOR contributed by organizing a workshop that took place on 13 and 14 December. Gatherings of people from diverse fields of expertise were invited to come up with ideas for the potentialities and different functions of the open space in general and, more specifically, for playgrounds. Participants of the workshop included legal philosopher Gijs van Oenen (University of Rotterdam), ecologist Matthijs Schouten (University of Wageningen) and visual artists Dan Peterman (Chicago), Ingo Vetter (Berlin) and Nils Norman (London). Together with Hoogvliet’s administrators and officials, the Playgrounds researchers and SKOR’s representatives, they explored the parks and nine districts that make up Hoogvliet and took part in a round table discussion.
Recently artist Nils Norman did research on what he personally calls ‘adventure playgrounds’. These are playgrounds that offer a large amount of space for unforeseen usage. He delved into the history of the development of playgrounds since the 1930’s and made sketches of this. Recently in the late modernist town planning - particularly in England and Germany – playgrounds that have been designed and furnished by children are being realized. However, due to increasing liability issues and regulations it is becoming increasingly difficult to assign children a role in the design process. According to Norman the foremost meaning of these places is that of the ‘ecological niche’ as they are often valuable habitats that hardly change during extended periods of time. Only their surroundings alter.
Ingo Vetter studied two places that had been ‘squatted’ and serve as examples of spontaneous urban agriculture. One of these was an undeveloped plot of land close to the Berlin Wall that was already squatted back in 1971. It was here that a type of children’s farm emerged as a result of the surrounding inhabitants who started keeping chickens, goats and pigs etc. on the property. The area was used by a variety of groups at varying times and the users themselves performed the maintenance. The other example is the dilapidated and deserted city center of Detroit. After the collapse of the automobile industry when nobody took responsibility for the inner city anymore, it was only the poor who continued to live in this neighborhood while the rich departed for the suburbs. People began to farm the unclaimed land not in order to survive but, rather, as a symbolic statement that demonstrated that this was their land and that they would use it as such. Based on these examples, Vetter would rather have no physical products developed for Hoogvliet that fix the land’s usage but, instead, create conditions that allow exceptional and unforeseen usage.
Dan Peterman is more interested in the organic processes of urban society than in the isolated concept of the ‘playground’. He is a long time resident of Chicago and lives on the border of a wealthy area and an underprivileged neighborhood. Like an isolated enclave, the University of Chicago is located next to this area. After his studies at the art faculty of this university, Peterman joined a group that created all kinds of artistic interventions that served to improve the neighborhood and its community life. He was, among others, involved in the establishment of shops that recycle materials. Peterman is mainly interested in the conditions that instigate all kinds of processes that are, in turn, added to the existing local complexity. With his interventions he consistently makes use of the available resources and the existing conditions. In this way, Peterman tries to find alternative models for developing and stimulating organic processes that are in contrast to systematic processes in which everything has been predetermined.
According to ecologist Matthijs Schouten - who, in addition to his ecological research also researched the perception of landscape – there are basically two types of distinguishable landscapes: the natural landscape and the semi-natural landscape. The first type includes ‘wild’ nature whereas the second type is represented by the (agri) cultural landscape. He connects both types to the Nietzchian dichotomy of Dionysian vs. Apollonian. In this way the first is natural and unconnected to space and time and the second is semi-natural, having come forth through the interaction with humans. The latter type which is connected to space and time, gives one a sense of harmony and serenity. In other words the relation between the geomorphology and the history of habitation is imaginable and the landscape can be read like a book. According to Schouten, the riverbank forest that surrounds Hoogvliet refers to the Dionysian landscape whereas the old village center (formerly a fishing port) refers to the Apollonian landscape with its recognizable topographical human touches including the dyke, the church and the pattern of streets. In Hoogvliet he distinguishes a third type, namely, the rational landscape. Schouten suggests that many of the green open spaces that are hardly used as public spaces should be better utilized in order to allow new experiences to come about. In doing so, one should make use of the geomorphology so that the landscape can become readable again.
Philosopher Gijs van Oenen does not agree with the basic principle of Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens and he considers this book to be old-fashioned and boring. In his opinion, people do not essentially need to ‘play’. One should actually see playing as a specific feature that can offer a solution to certain issues and problems in contemporary society. As such he considers Nieuw Babylon (New Babylon), which is based on Huizinga’s homo ludens concept, to be a good example of a bad idea. On the basis of Huizinga’s book the artist, Constant, differentiates between two domains, namely, the domain in which the production of necessities is realized and the domain of free time or relaxation. According to Gijs van Oenen this dichotomy becomes highly problematic when there is no connection between the two domains. In the town planning of the 1960s and 1970s, the divisions between working, living and free time bore significant consequences. Public and private functions were divided, separated and, literally, worked out on different levels. The Bijlmer is a famous example of this and, in Hoogvliet, this disconnection of different domains can also be seen. According to Gijs van Oenen one should not view ‘playing’ as the highest level but, rather, as a possibility to connect different levels with each other, similar to the negotiations that take place between the public and private aspects of life.
Since the 1970s, people have become more individualistic. They no longer form a homogenous community but are, instead, autistic and behave as such. Van Oenen distinguishes three types of behaviors that are related to how people envisage themselves in the public space.
1. Nimby (not in my backyard): You are not involved. You appreciate public affairs but you cannot accept the negative consequences thereof. It’s all very well as long as it doesn’t bother you.
2. Capsular (see the publication Lieven de Cauter, De Capsulaire Samenleving, NAi Uitgevers): People who withdraw from public space and act as if they are not actually in it. An example is someone wearing a walkman in a train.
3. Interpassive: You notice your surroundings but are, simultaneously, connected to your personal life. An example is someone using their cell phone in the train. You are aware of the public life but, because you are in connection with your private life, you don’t have (or want) any interaction with it. These three phenomena have dramatically altered the public space. Gijs van Oenen proposes transitional spaces or ‘playgrounds’ that are informal and can forge a connection between the public and private life. The creating of this is, in itself, a type of game.
'The world is my playground' was made possible with the contribution of the Stimuleringsfonds voor Architectuur (Stimulation Fund for Architecture).
Check out www.speelwereld.nl and www.dollab.nl (click on ‘werk’ and ‘playgrounds’)
Architect Henk Doll - Playground
The design is based on a model of a world city, which has been made by children of the asylum seekers centre in Feilenoord and has been exposed in Villa Zebra. This model takes part in the education program Raise it up! which Gasia Grubba and Judith Varwerk have set up with the goal to let asylum seekers' children get to know the architecture from their home country and Rotterdam. The project is a great success. In the model of the world city 12 children have designed and created buildings in which different cultures are integrated. The goal of the Raise it up! - world playground is to design a distinguishing playground with references to different cultural statements.
Cees de Boer - Knowledge of nature
Basing himself on three art projects, Cees de Boer shows how knowledge and learning are brought into action in order to make the experience of the work of art more intense. To this end, the artist not only deploys the public as participant, but also becomes himself more and more a part of the ecological system that he investigates and makes visible in his work. In the Abri that Elsa Stansfield and Madelon Hooykaas made for the Prof. Van der Leeuw Foundation in Wijk aan Zee in 1995, the spectator is given the opportunity to become totally absorbed in individually experiencing sounds received by a dish antenna. In Herman de Vries’ Tuindorp collections for a housing development near Tilburg, an extensive collection of trees and shrubs becomes a sort of mat for the neighbourhood. Knowledge and experience of nature are thus introduced into an environment which otherwise admits of no connection at all. In the Sanctuarium that de Vries was commissioned by De Verbeelding to realise for the Artificial natural networks event in Zeewolde, nature is given a sanctuary where it can follow its own laws undisturbed. Managing and intervening in this area is made impossible; man is kept at a distance, and is left with the job of witnessing the process, which is what nature essentially is.
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