Join us on a visit to Department 21 for a roundtable discussion about cross-disciplinary practice led by public works with guests Celine Condorelli (London-based architect and author of 'support structures'), Richard Wentworth (Head of Sculpture, RCA) and Sarah Teasley (design historian and RCA History of Design)

Department 21 is a temporary, physical space established by students of the RCA as an experiment in interdisciplinary practice.

Temporarily taking over a vacated space in the Royal College of Art, Department 21 seeks to explore whether this territory, freed by the departure of one department and the anticipation of another, can become a new kind of conceptual, physical and social space which test the possibilities of a cross-disciplinary initiative.

For one month only, students from all departments of the College are invited to use this platform to develop independent work and cultivate collaborative projects in a multi-purpose environment.

The Round table discussion will look at the nature of initiatives originating from within institutional settings and the potential of cross-disciplinarity within educational institutions such as the RCA.

The event will run from 1pm this Friday the 4th of December 2009 in Lecture Theater 2 at the RCA. Visitors to the RCA can enter from the main entrance, which looks onto the Royal Albert Hall and follow the signs guiding visitors to Lecture Theater 2.
Click here to find the location on google maps

Posted December 2, 2009 22:01 by Andreas Lang

Art and Regeneration.
A half day symposium from 14.00 10 18.00
followed by a public round table discussion at 18.30
Friday 12th September 2008

Georges House,
8 the Old High Street,
Folkestone,
Kent CT20 1RL, UK
T: 44 (0) 1303 244533

The event is an initiative by public works as part of the Folkestone Triennial and in association with Folkestone based Strange Cargo, Club Shepway, The Creative Foundation and the Research Network Forum.

The half day symposium brings together a number of practitioners and organisations from Folkestone and the South East Coast, who are involved in cultural programmes that are linked to regeneration issues.

Art and Regeneration are two terms frequently used to describe current changes in Folkestone. The event wants to provide a platform to look at actual cultural programmes and initiatives, and to discuss overlaps and differences in existing and projected ideas and strategies for Folkestone.

Programme

13.30 Registration
14.00 Welcome by Strange Cargo and public works
14.10 Introduction by public works
14.40 Presentation by Brigitte Orasinski from Strange Cargo followed
15.10 Presentation by Nick Ewbank Creative Foundation followed by questions
15.40 Coffeebreak
16.00 Presentation by Andrea Schlieker from Folkestone Triennial followed by questions
16.30 Presentation by Laura Mansfield and Matt Rowe from Club Shepway followed by questions
17.00 Break out Session
17.45 Plenum and feedback from the 2 Sessions
18.00 Break and Refreshments

18.30 - 20.00
Public panel discussion with

Andrea Schlieker (Folkestone Triennial)
Nick Ewbank (Creative Foundation)
Paul Rennie (Folkestone Research Network Forum)
Laura Mansfield (Club Shepway)
Brigitte Orasinski (Strange Cargo)

Chaired by Kathrin Böhm (public works)

The event is free, but seats are limited.
For more information and bookings please contact Kathrin@publicworksgroup.net

About the partners organising the event
(all texts are taken from the organisation's websites)

public works is a London based artist and architects collective involved in this year's Folkestone Triennial. public works develops physical and non physical models to allow for a participatory and cross-hierarchical reflection and shaping of public spaces. Their contribution to the triennial is a mobile mapping station called "Folkestonomy" (www.folkestonomy.net) which traces everyday cultural spaces within the town and compiles individual mappings in a growing on line map.
www.publicworksgroup.net

Strange Cargo
Over its eleven year lifespan, Strange Cargo has established a reputation for high profile quality public art, and has delivered award-winning projects, including Like the Back of my Hand, an extensive installation at Folkestone Central station which recently won the Rouse Kent Public Art Award. In its public art involvement, Strange Cargo seeks to create works of context, leaving communities with lasting meaningful landmarks and a sense of participation in their surrounding environment.
www.strangecargo.org.uk/

Club Shepway
Club Shepway is a group of emerging artists and writers based in Folkestone. Playing with local histories, hidden memories and current affairs Club Shepway is concerned with the social and commercial development occurring in the area. Through events, exhibitions and interventions Club Shepway aims to develop an active arena of cultural debate within the current process of regeneration.
www.clubshepway.com

Creative Foundation
How do you regenerate a once-fashionable but now faded seaside town?
The regeneration question matters across Britain, and for the Folkestone-based Creative Foundation it demands an innovative answer: we want to revitalise the town by attracting and harnessing the energies of creative people and businesses.
www.creativefoundation.org.uk

Folkestone Triennial
One of the of the most ambitious public art projects to be presented in the UK, the Triennial is a three-yearly exhibition of works which will be specially commissioned for public spaces throughout Folkestone. The selected artists have responded to the invitation with proposals for artworks that engage with the Kent coastal town's history, population, culture and built environment to create a cutting-edge contemporary art exhibition.
The Triennial is conceived and curated by curator Andrea Schlieker, co-curator of the British Art Show 2005/06, and aims to examine changing notions of art in the public realm. The inaugural Folkestone Triennial will include both temporary works, which will remain in situ for the three months of the show, and a number of permanent works. This pattern will be repeated in subsequent Triennials so that, over time, Folkestone will become a centre for contemporary art of the highest calibre.
www.folkestonetriennial.org.uk

Regeneration Network Forum
The Research Network Forum (RNF) is organised by Dr Paul Rennie of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London. It is hosted by University Centre Folkestone and is supported by the Creative Foundation.
The RNF will take place over three separate days over the summer of 2008. The RNF coincides with the Folkestone Triennial - an international festival of contemporary public sculpture.
The town of Folkestone is a historic seaside resort on the south coast of Britain (located at the English end of the Channel Tunnel). Like many seaside towns, it has suffered from a variety of economic and social problems that devolve from the perception of economic marginalisation and collapse of the traditional English seaside holiday.
Those problems are now being actively addressed through cultural regeneration. The Creative Foundation is engaged in promoting this regeneration through a variety of initiatives, not least the 2008, 2011 and 2014 Folkestone Triennials. In addition, the arrival of HS1 rail services to-and-from London will place Folkestone at one end of a development corridor stretching from King's Cross to East Kent, via the Olympic sites of East London.
Accordingly, Folkestone is a uniquely qualified environment in which to investigate the effectiveness of these regeneration strategies and to elaborate the interdisciplinary and collaborative methodologies that will support the proper analysis of regeneration economics.
www.rennart.co.uk/rnf.html

Posted August 22, 2008 12:20 by Kathrin Böhm

Rural public space - Cross Country

The next Friday Session will take place as part of
Torange Khonsari's (public works)
Cross Country project for Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridgeshire.

The project concludes research and walks that were undertaken in the last year
in and around the village of Bourn and Wysing Arts Centre, and proposes new questions and structures towards public and communal spaces in a rural environment.
Torange has negotiated the temporary extension of a public path into privately owned land, and the Friday Session will be part of a series of events to take place on a specifically designed platform structure on site.
The speakers would be
Torange Khonsari - talking about the definition/condition of a rural public space and its immediate community
Wapke Feenstra - conducting a soil drilling on site and opening a discussion around who owns which layer of the land.

Programme:
Thurs 13 - Sat 15 March
Bourn Village
local walks
Thurs 10am - 2pm, led by Polly Brannan, William Bevan
Friday 10am - 2pm, led by Polly Brannan, William Bevan, Torange Khonsari
Saturday 10am - 2pm, led by Sarah Butler

Thurs 13 - Sat 15 March
Personal map-making workshops
Thurs 2 - 4pm, led by Polly Brannan, Torange Khonsari
Friday 2 - 4pm led by Polly Brannan, Torange Khonsari
Saturday 12 - 2pm led by Sarah Butler

Saturday 2 - 4pm
Friday Session_26
Discussion on the role of rural space and culture
Torange Khonsari, architect in public works
Wapke Feenstra, artist in myvillages.org

Posted February 23, 2008 13:46 by Torange Khonsari

urban-act-cover.jpg

URBAN ACT

The presentation of a European wide network of practices who act within the urban field as a place for political change and architectural practice, introducing their different projects, tools and methods.

The compilation of practices results from numerous pan European workshops, and has recently been published in book form by atelier d'architecture atogérée.
The URBAN ACT book not only locates and maps the activities of numerous
practices, but is structured as a manual to allow insight into the methods of
interventionist urban practice, like a user guide to "do-it-yourself urbanism".

For more information on the background and contributions visiisit the related research project website www.peprav.net

Practice contributors include:
aaa, Paris
AG Gleisdreieck, Berlin
Park Fiction, Hamburg
Constant, Brussels
Atsa, Quebec
public works, London
Blok, Zagreb
Laboratorio Urbano, Madrid
Metrozones, Berlin
etc.etc.etc

Posted January 25, 2008 13:02 by Kathrin Böhm

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Friday Session_23 'Future Gallery' Book Launch and Discussion
Friday 2nd of Nov 2007 at 19.00

public works
Northgate House
2-8 Scrutton Street
London EC2A 4RT
For directions click here

The Future Gallery book documents and reflects on a 20 months-long touring art project developed by the art/architecture collective public works and commissioned by the Internal Cultural Communications Department of Siemens Arts Program in close cooperation with Siemens Corporate Communications UK.

The Future Gallery asked individual Siemens employees at 16 different sites across the UK to sketch their visions of the company's future. Professionals from different fields were later invited to select some of the drawings and interpret them in to the light of their particular knowledge and views on corporate visions and identity.

Hosted as a Friday Session of public works, the evening will bring together some of the selectors to discuss cultural practices within corporate structures and recall their interpretations of the Future Gallery. The discussion will be chaired by Matthew Cornford.

The publication will be launched in collaboration with Artwords Bookshop, distributor of the publication in the UK.

Future Gallery
Published by Rebekah Fitzgerald and Kay Winsper (Siemens UK), Karolin Timm-Wachter and Christine Hildebrandt (Siemens Arts Program), Kathrin Böhm, Andreas Lang and Stefan Saffer (public works) ISBN 978-3-935779-00-5

For further information contact public works

Posted November 2, 2007 10:10 by Kathrin Böhm

architex.jpg

public works together with Book Works and supportstructure invite you to a Friday Session to launch

The so-called utopia of the centre beauborg - an interpretation by Luca Frei,
co-published by Book Works and Casco
and
A FanFiction by public works and supportstructure:

Where does the speculation start and finish?
We are asking a number of artists/architects/urbanists who are/have been involved in participatory and/or self managed public programmes, to revisit that particular project's initial ambitions and concepts in relation to the reality of its lived appropriation.
What could have happened next?
The invitation is to fictionalise the future of the project, after it has already gone through multiple speculations by the different authors and users involved; this is meant as a light hearted opportunity to assess what has taken place so far, and to push it into a (probably) unrealistic direction.

Luca Frei will be joined by Alun Rowlands, Emily Pethick, Kathrin Böhm, Andreas Lang and Celine Condorelli, for an informal presentation and discussion.

Friday 14 September 2007
19.00 to 21.00
public works
Northgate House
2-4 Scrutton Street
UK London
EC2A 4RT

Posted July 24, 2007 09:18 by Kathrin Böhm

Can political art travel and be understood?
Monday 23rd April starts at 19.00
at public works studio

As part of REUNION, the next Friday Session focuses on art works by Nada Prlja and Nemanja Cvijanovic that address obstacles of political, economic and cultural exchange between the UK and South East Europe. How do our interpretations of political art differ across contexts and how can we tell the
stories of these contradictory reactions and translations?

Nemanja Cvijanovic's work conceptually explores socialist histories and constantly reconsiders the relationship between economics and politics, sometimes to the extent of being censored. Past works include 'The Sweetest Dream? a manipulation of the stars of the EU flag to form a swastika and a series of works critiquing loans for capitalist lifestyles exhibited at the gallery of the Austrian Erste bank in Rijeka, Croatia.

Nada Prlja's estate agency 'Give and Take' attempts to sell properties in South East Europe to UK buyers. 3 Markov Dvor in Belgrade, for example, is 'a beautiful four bed flat that has enormous charm and typical features of the socialist period...the property has been inherited through the generations and is currently occupied by mother, son, daughter-in-law and three year old baby'. "Give and Take" is a response to the current economic inequalities that citizens in Western and Eastern European countries are experiencing and mutually taking advantage of.

REUNION is an art research project by Sophie Hope that has received support from the Austrian Cultural Forum, London, Visiting Arts and the British Council. Nemanja Cvijanovic's residency in London is funded by the Croatian Ministry of Culture and City of Rijeka.

For further information about past and current REUNION work please go to http://www.reunionprojects.org.uk/

Posted April 14, 2007 00:01 by Torange Khonsari

The easiest common denominator to be pointed out in the work of interior designer Ben Kelly and artist DJ Simpson is the use of DIY materials, bold colours and strong lines. That's where the obvious ends and an interesting conversations starts. Ben and DJ have been talking about the different influences and ideas behind their practice for a while, and this Friday Session will see a continuation of their conversations in public.

They will be showing examples of their own work and various cultural and material references which had formal and conceptual influence on their work, from Oskar Schlemmer's Lacquer Cabinet to Andy Warhol's Silver Factory, from Italian colour samples to new industrial sheet material, from Roxy Music to Stereolab.

Ben Kelly founded Ben Kelly Design (BKD) in the mid 70ies and the studio is best known for its innovative space planning using hardwearing materials. Designs include the Haçienda and Dry 201 Bar in Manchester and more recently the Discovery Gallery for Walsall Museum and Gymbox in Covent Garden and www.benkellydesign.com

DJ Simpson has been producing abstract drawings on laminated wooden panels, using various DIY power tools to carve into the various colours and finishes available for laminate. Recent commissions and exhibitions include a two coloured mirror piece for Draw, the opening exhibition of Middlesbrough Museum of Art (mima) and solo exhibitions with Sies and Höke Gallery in Düsseldorf and Helga de Alvear Gallery in Madrid.
www.sieshoeke.com/artists/dj-simpson

Artwords Bookshop will be presenting DJ Simpson's recent monograph DJ Simpson works 2000 to 2005 which was published as part of his exhibition at the Mead Gallery in Coventry in 2006. The involvement with Friday Session 14 is one of many Artwords Bookshop events to promote and publish contemporary visual arts and culture.
www.artwords.co.uk

Posted March 8, 2007 09:45 by Kathrin Böhm

igmade-fs07_low-res_600.jpg

Igmade is a collective of artists, designers, architects and theoreticians. It was first formed in Stuttgart in September 2001 as a think and action tank to offer expertise to Stuttgart University's Institut Grundlagen moderner Architektur und Entwerfen (IGMA). Igmade deals on a theoretical level with the interrelations of space, politics and warfare; based on that it develops book projects, designer toys, dance tracks, architectures, exhibitions and video clips. Since the publication of Igmade's book "Codes: Architecture, Paranoia and Risk in Times of Terror" (Birkhäuser, 2006), the group became independent from its Stuttgart university context. Its protagonists are now mainly based in Berlin. Current members include Julian Friedauer, Stephan Henrich, Daniel Hundsdörfer, Martin Knall, Iassen Markov, Dick Martini, Daniel Mock and Stephan Trüby; during the public works session, some of them will present past and present work.

Posted October 12, 2006 19:00 by Andreas Lang

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"In the Friday Session, I will focus on the cityscapes and hope to discuss with the audience questions like: what is the space of a cityscape? And why do I stick to making impressions of a location by looking for details that just give a random and subjective trend of a chosen inlet of the space? How can cityscapes be a screen of the location that is communicating the space around us more like landscape-paintings can do (a genre that tends to narrate our emotional relationship to our environment)?" Wapke

Feenstra evokes spaces to roam in, get lost in, gather thoughts in or fantasise in, thought-lost. Feenstra has a weakness for objects that, because of their very ordinariness, have no necessary meaning. She places them in a new perspective, creating the space to see them in another way " as mental spaces in which things do" look as they usually do.
The works are intended to provoke the viewers' associations, and are rarely clear-cut. Many of her works comprise part of a presumed larger whole, but you will never see it all at once. The works are making you aware that the perception is a local and subjective moment, cut out by time and space, but never isolated from culture.

Wapke Feenstra (1959 Wjelsryp, Hennaarderadeel) www.wapke.nl ; studied art at the Jan van Eyckacademie in Maastricht (postgraduate 1991) and works since 1992 as an artist in Rotterdam. Recent outdoor projects are Bathers in Amsterdam (2003) and Bathers in Munich (2005). Recent white cube shows i.e.: Klein Art Works Chicago IL (USA) 2004, Museum of Contemporary Art Heerlen (NL) 2003 & MKgalerie.nl Rotterdam (NL).
Cityscapes can be seen i.e. on the internet www.verhalenvandordrecht.nl , ongoing story collection in Dordrecht (NL) 1999-2009,www.woefwoef.nl, Arnhem (NL) see the city by following the dog routes 2001, www.huisboomfeest.nl , the cyclic time in a neighbourhood in Tilburg (NL) will be shown in pictures and trees 2005-2010.

Posted June 2, 2006 19:00 by Kathrin Böhm