Phenomena of social exclusion and marginality manifest themselves more and more in how the urban environment is built and regulated. This long tradition of architecturally engineered segregation, from the Venetian ghettos to Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, is well alive and has been growing around the world according to the particularities of the local context, albeit having its unmistakable matrix in the flows of global capital. However, clusters of resistance to the model of the alienating global city are widespread. These groups of resistance elaborate models and produce tools for taking back the city to its inhabitants and reclaiming its ownership.
Thursday, 18th June 2015, 3-5pm The Bartlett School of Planning, UCL LG01, Central House 14 Upper Woburn Place London WC1H 0NN Please, reserve your free ticket here: https://goo.gl/lmcq5Y
This talk will present examples of artistic actions across Brazil, China and Europe that intervene in the everyday perception of the urban context by its citizens and, often in a playful and ironic fashion, stimulate in them a new critical awareness of its mechanisms of exclusion and of its potentialities for inclusion. A multi-disciplinary approach across visual arts, design, urban planning and architecture will attempt at tackling this question through a global, transnational approach. The 15-minute interventions by the designated speakers and a live interaction with the participating audience will alternate each other.
Andressa Vianna (São Paulo) is a multimedia producer, who works at the intersection between old and new technologies in social and civil matters, and one of the founders of Casa da Cultura Digital. She has been working extensively in collaborative projects and in the organizations of urban and street manifestations such as the Festival Baixo Centro in São Paulo.
Biin Shen (Beijing) is a cross-media artist and designer. She has been collaborating with the OMA design studio in Beijing and with artists Ai Wei Wei in recent projects. She is one of the first and foremost supporters of Beijing Independent Urban Visual Art Research Association. She holds a master in design interaction from the Royal College of Art and has exhibited, among others, at the RCA, London, X Media Lab Exhibition, Perth or Zedpavilion, EXPO Shanghai.
Ségolène Pruvot (Paris) is Cultural Director of European Alternatives and coordinates Transeuropa Festival (www.transeuropafestival.eu), a transnational festival of arts, culture and politics, taking place simultaneously in up to 12 cities across Europe since 2007. Ségolène was trained and worked as a political scientist and urban planner in France, the UK and Germany. At European Alternatives, she has developed an extensive experience in designing and implementing transnational cultural programmes and stimulating volunteers groups around Europe.
Simon Burnett & Samantha Loy Fripp (London) are Director and Managing Director as well as Co-Founders of a collective of award winning planners, urban designers, architects and permaculturists who have founded Smallworld Urbanism – an urban planning and design consultancy focused on the role nature plays in our happiness and well-being. Their aim is to aid the re-colonisation of space with nature, play, food and artistry through collaborative imagination and co-creation.
Moderator: Luigi Galimberti (Oxford) is coordinator of Transnational Dialogues, an exchange and research programme for artists, curators, architects and designers across Brazil, China and Europe.
“Urban Design and Artistic Interventions across Brazil, China and Europe” is a Place Alliance TalkPlace!, organised by Place Alliance & the Bartlett Arts Club, in association with Transnational Dialogues, Hack (y)our Borders and European Alternatives, and with the support of the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union.
[Cover photo: Festival Baixo Centro, São Paulo (2012)]