Department: Intervention as a Strategy
Information on registration here.
The seminar will look at the nature of direct interventions used by artist and architects and their role in the larger narratives of urban development – Vanity projects or politically motivated direct actions? The seminar will unpick some of the motivations behind small scale intervention in the public realm and explore their agency in the neoliberal city. From the poetic gesture of solidarity with the city and its occupants, to tactical urbanism as a strategy for place-making or the role of ‘precedence’ in policy making.
The Seminar will start with setting up Raumlabor’s ‘Bubble’ which will allow us to experience first hand and with our own bodies how acting in the city will change the way we relate to and understand the space we occupy. Once completed the seminar will be held in the ‘Bubble’ which will be dismantled again at the end.
Andreas Lang will be presenting work from his practice public works and their long term research into the transformation of east London around the Olympic project. London is rapidly expanding east wards and the area surrounding Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park can be understood as the frontline of neoliberal development. Public works have spent the last 10 years following this transformation and acting within it often using small scale, temporary and mobile devices to engage with the politics of the transformation.
ABOUT THE TUTOR
Andreas Lang is the co-founder of public works, a non-profit critical design practice that occupies the terrain between art, architecture and research. Working with an extended network of interdisciplinary collaborators, public works aims to re-work spatial, social and economic opportunities towards citizen-driven development and improved civic life. The practice, set up in 2004, uses a range of approaches, including public events, campaigns, the development of urban strategies and participatory art and architecture projects across all scales. Andreas Lang is currently course leader of the MArch in Architecture at Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design (London) and visiting lecturer at Umeå School of Architecture (Sweden).