arts catalyst announces everyday urbanism: architecture as
TRANSCRIPT
74-76 Cromer Street
London WC1H 8DR
+44 (0)20 7278 8373
artscatalyst.org
@TheArtsCatalyst
PRESS RELEASE Thu 21 April 2016
Images: Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London, 2016; Arts Catalyst Centre, 2016
Arts Catalyst announces Everyday Urbanism: Architecture as Social
Process, a 3 year research and public programme launching in May 2016
with A Public Hearing.
Starting from Arts Catalyst’s new neighbourhood in London’s Kings Cross and expanding
out across the city, Everyday Urbanism: Architecture as Social Process will create a
platform for international artists, urbanist collectives and research architects to link with
a diverse range of local communities. Together these groups will explore and document
the social, political and environmental issues affecting those who inhabit the city.
Drawing on community-centred practices from around the world, Everyday Urbanism will
develop user-centred, sustainable technologies to address some of these key issues and
explore the potential of the commons as a way for residents to reclaim their right to the
city. In a time of ever diminished state welfare, decreasing council run community
infrastructures and housing provisions and the dwindling potential of public space as a
site of civil agency, Everyday Urbanism sees an urgency in finding alternative ways of living
and thriving in our cities.
Everyday Urbanism will evolve over the course of three years creating new relationships,
networks, events, exhibitions and commissions. In May 2016, Arts Catalyst will launch the
first of these projects A Public Hearing. Developed by postgraduate students from the
Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London A Public Hearing
is centred on a two-month residency at Arts Catalyst’s Centre for Art, Science and
Technology. During this time, they will use the form and function of a traditional public
hearing to investigate a number of contemporary conditions. Throughout May the group
will conduct closed research with local residents, jointly shaping the form and content of
the series of public hearing events. As well as the public hearings themselves,
documentation, audio recordings and research materials will form the basis of an evolving
installation, open to the public throughout June 2016.
Everyday Urbanism will be developed in collaboration with a curatorial advisory group
including Arts Catalyst, Territorial Agency / John Palmesino and Ann-Sofi Rönnskog,
curator Claire Louise Staunton (Flat Time House/MK Gallery) and Susan Schuppli, Deputy
Director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London, and
Cromer Street based Barrister Ousman Noor.
With a history of over 20 years, Arts Catalyst has pioneered art that engages with science
and technology, commissioning over 125 ambitious artists’ projects and numerous
exhibitions. In January 2016, Arts Catalyst opened a Centre for Art, Science and
Technology in London’s Kings Cross, providing a space for artists, scientists and experts
to experiment and create new projects, and enable vital audience interactions. Exhibitions
reflect and extend Arts Catalyst’s national and international projects and the work of
partners.
Everyday Urbanism: Architecture as Social Process
Arts Catalyst Center, 74-76 Cromer Street, London WC1H 8DR
A Public Hearing event: Saturday 25 June 2016
The Centre is open to the public in June.
Friday 3 June – Saturday 25 June, Fridays & Saturdays, 12noon – 6pm http://www.artscatalyst.org/everyday-urbanism-architecture-social-process
ends.
Interviews and images available on request.
Contact details:
Jessica Wallis, Communications Officer
T: +44 (0)20 7278 8373
Claudia Lastra, Programme Manager
T: +44 (0)20 7278 8373
www.artscatalyst.org
Twitter @TheArtsCatalyst
Facebook /TheArtsCatalyst
Notes to Editors:
1) Arts Catalyst is one of the UK’s most distinctive arts organisations, distinguished by ambitious art
commissions and its unique take on art-science practice. The organisation is funded by Arts Council England
as part of its National Portfolio. Over 21 years, it has commissioned more than 125 UK and international
artists’ projects, often at pivotal moments in artists’ careers, including major projects by Tomas Saraceno,
Aleksandra Mir, Agnes Meyer-Brandis, Carey Young, Jan Fabre and the Otolith Group. Arts Catalyst works
with artists and scientists to create artworks and generate new ideas exploring science and its role in
society and culture: from the nature of air to environmental change, interspecies communication to the
future of the moon. It aims to give audiences distinctive, thought-provoking experiences and to play a
leading role in the dialogue around interdisciplinary artistic practice. The organisation collaborates with
world-class galleries, museums, universities, arts organisations, science institutions and research centres.
2) Public Hearings originated from the process of the enclosure of public lands in Britain in the 18th and
19th Centuries. They were held in order to create a petition to parliament to enclose the land, and then later
to hear objections to the act created by Parliament. Today, public hearings are still used when dealing with
both public lands and private properties. Adopting the device of the public hearing, the group of students
from the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths will consider how diverse experiences and events
are communicated through speech, vocalising, hearing and listening. Through a series of hearings in June
(some public, others with invited groups) and an exhibition, the students will bring together participants,
ideas and concerns. Hearings will address local social issues, as well as more abstract themes.
2) The Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths College, University of London is a pedagogical
experiment and political project that sits at the intersection of many fields and disciplines from architecture
and media to law and climate science. Practitioners from a wide-range of backgrounds work within new
conceptual frameworks, developing cutting-edge tools for undertaking spatial research and critical analysis.
The Centre investigates the urgent political conditions of our time through practice-led research. It asks:
How can architecture engage with questions of contemporary culture, politics, media, ecology, and justice?
through a combination of fieldwork, theoretical enquiry, and creative approach, spatial investigations include
both practical and theoretical considerations, concentrating on a distinct issue, process or site.
3) Territorial Agency is an independent organisation that innovatively promotes and works for sustainable
territorial transformations. Territorial Agency is engaged to strengthen the capacity of local and
international communities in comprehensive spatial transformation management. Projects channel available
spatial resources towards the development of their full potential. Territorial Agency works for the
establishment of instruments and methods for ensuring higher architectural and urban quality in the
contemporary territories.
4) Susan Schuppli’s research practice examines media artifacts that emerge out of sites of contemporary
conflict and state violence to ask questions about the ways in which media are enabling or limiting the
possibility of transformative politics. Her current work explores the ways in which toxic ecologies from
nuclear accidents and oil spills, to the dark snow of the arctic, are producing an 'extreme image' archive of
material wrongs. She has published widely within the context of media and politics and is author of the book,
Material Witness, MIT Press, 2015. Susan is Senior Lecturer and Deputy Director of the Centre for Research
Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London. From 2011-14 she was Senior Research Fellow on the ERC
project Forensic Architecture led by Eyal Weizman.
5) Ousman Noor is a Barrister with extensive experience in representing individuals in immigration detention,
making bail applications in Immigration Tribunals on their behalf. This experience led to a strong conviction
that immigration detention was often performed unlawfully with insufficient transparency or accountability
to the rule of law. In 2014 he set up The Habeas Corpus Project, a non-profit organisation that provides pro-
bono legal representation in challenging unlawful detention of individuals in the UK. Ousman’s office is based
next door to Arts Catalyst’s Centre on Cromer Street in Kings Cross.
http://habeas-corpus.org.uk