Happy New Year first of all and thanks for following our log and the things we do

Until the launch of our new website (SOON!) we keep using this blog to publish news and events.

Projects to watch out for in 2010 include
- the launch of our first COLCHESTER INN Produce in February
- the design and production of a Multipurpose Mobile Art Space for a hospital in Zuerich
- the launch of the final Whitechapel Giftshop conversion
- the ongoing efforts to run and establish the International Village Shop together with myvillages.org, Grizedale Arts and Somewhere

Posted January 4, 2010 11:43 by Kathrin Böhm

To all our colleagues, friends, collaborators and commissioners!

Posted December 21, 2009 12:44 by Log

public works is part of the Archive of Shared Interests in the White Space Zurich curated by the Institute for Critical Theory

Archive of Shared Interests – Transfer Zone – Temporary Life – Temporary Communities 30 Theoretical approaches, architectural and artistic dossiers for communities in the Transfer Zone

Opening Hours:
Thursdays: 17.12.2009 / 7.1. 20010: 3pm – 6pm
Or on appointment: please call 079 231 33 36

Artists:
Marina Belobrovaja / Ursula Biemann / Corner College / Jeremy Deller / eggerschlatter / Finger (evolutionäre zellen) / forschungsgruppe f / Fritz Haeg / Christina Hemauer/Roman Keller / Michael Hieslmair/Michael Zinganel / interpixel / Martin Kaltwasser/Folke Köbbeling / San Keller / Pia Lanzinger / Michaela Melián / MetroZones / Peles Empire / Frédéric Post / Public Works / Alain Rappaport / raumlaborberlin / RELAX (chiarenza & hauser & co) / Oliver Ressler / Shedhalle / Erik Steinbrecher / Support Structure / Szuper Gallery / tat ort / Jeanne van Heeswijk / Markus Weiss
Curated by Karin Frei Bernasconi, Siri Peyer, Dorothee Richter,
Exhibition design Jesko Fezer with Postgraduate Program in Curating, ICS ZHdK,
Graphic Design Megan Hall.

“Transfer” refers to nomadic states of life in post-Fordist societies encompassing a large number of different subjects: A kind of temporary life is led both by persons bearing the status of economic, political or war refugees as well as by specialists in the IT sector and producers of culture – without any intention of equating these groups. In this context, negative connotations of temporariness and placelessness exist side by side with imagined attributions of innovation and flexibility. How is this state of temporariness reflected in the pictorial media and architecture of everyday culture? How are communities invoked and organized? And how is this conveyed to the subjects afterward as tolerable and desirable? What role is played here by urban architecture, how does the latter function as de-historicizing power structures, how do the latter permit other, subversive tendencies? How do subjects create niches and identifications for themselves in these environments dominated by the flow of capital? How do they organize a reversal from power structures to the nodal points, the architecture, the pictorial media, the agreements and the discussions? What temporary alliances and communities are formed in the process?

Communities are defined by artists, scholars and urbanists as an antithesis to general society and its constraints, but they differ widely from one another in the roles they play. Whether the community is thought of as a secret utopia or as a threat to the individual, whether as a cooperative, a neighbourhood or a societal group, and whether or not the respective community is to be dissolved – every time, a certain artistic, architectural or theoretical concept of community initiates a subtext directed toward the public. Certain actions are implicitly designated for the visitors, the users, the readers; the public is revolutionized, integrated, informed, instructed, involved or controlled. The archive is conceived as a project apparatus on the broad theme of “community”, an apparatus representing different and contradictory approaches and points of view on the basis of which “community” can be discussed. The archive will serve prospectively as the project apparatus of a research project and be expanded and placed on view again beginning in March 2010.

Posted December 8, 2009 12:38 by Andreas Lang

The International Village Shop is going from strength to strength - after a big meeting with the four partners (public works, myvillages.org, Grizedale and Somewhere) we are now working on a website for the shop, and online honesty box and more production for 2010.
The latest shop was open for an evening as part of the launch for a new village produce for Neuenkirchen in rural northern Germany.

Posted November 30, 2009 11:08 by Log

RHYZOM fieldtrip to Ireland
20- 22 November 2009

PS²’s research and contribution for RHYZOM is centred on cultural production in rural environments and regional towns, North and South of Ireland. The border regions of Co. Leitrim, Republic of Ireland (the county with the lowest population) and Co. Armagh in Northern Ireland are the main areas of a comparative analysis of cultural initiatives and policies, local and regional in/dependences, trans-local impact and creative-alternative potentials.

To read more download the pdf with full text and itinerary -> ps2-fieldtrip.pdf

Posted November 18, 2009 11:11 by Andreas Lang

public works had been shortlisted to propose a mobile work/communication/display unit for a public arts programme in Zürich. "Nester" - a public arts programme for the Municipal Hospital Triemli - will be running over the next ten years and produce a variety of commissions for and with hospital users.
The results from the competition were announced this week, and public works is going ahead.

Posted November 13, 2009 11:44 by Log

Kathrin and Andreas will be running a workshop session during the Future Perfect Engage Conference which will take place in London this week.

Who is building what when it comes to large scale regeneration schemes? How do collective and participatory public art projects contribute to the shaping of the public realm? Where does the social become spatial? What does it mean for art and architecture collaborations?
The session is to look at collective, bottom up approaches and self initiated cultural projects that take place within larger scale regeneration environments.

public works is going to show some of their recent projects to introduce the session:
- Folk Float - a mobile local archive for the town of Egremont, which has become part of a longer term and larger scale planning, and addresses
issues of local participation and culture (see also www.diyregeneration.net)
- Park Products/Serpentine Pavilion 2004, a collective production and informal trade project for Kensington Gardens which generated a new public realm and space

The aim of the sessions is to assess participatory and process based cultural projects in regards to their spatial and architectural realities and potentials. The intention is to develop a better understanding and subsequent recognition of the spatial production that is going on in relational practice, both within concrete examples and across the field of practice.

The workshop part will introduce methodologies to represent and present them as such. We invite all participants to choose a cultural project they have been involved in/are aware of and to revisit it, with the aim to read and sketch it as a spatial proposal.

Posted November 1, 2009 21:49 by Log

The field-trip is part of a collective pan-european research project called RHYZOM.

On Friday 23rd October:

Introduction to Ruskin and guided tour of Brantwood House and Gardens by Howard Hull, Director of the Ruskin Foundation. Tea and discussion.

At 19.00 Friday Session with short minute presentations by the different RHYZOM partners/guests

Saturday 24th, all day at Lawson Park/Grizedale Arts, with a tour of the farm and gardens, actual gardening and harvesting vegetable for lunch, cooking.
A presentation by Edward Acland, local organic farmer at Sprint Mill and activist who is involved in communal growing schemes.

Sunday 25th visit Ruskin Museum/Coniston Institute.



Posted October 21, 2009 20:10 by Log

We have a desk available to rent in the public works studio in Vyner Street, east London. If you are looking for a desk - short term or long term - give us a ring, send an email or drop in to have a look and a chat.

For more information contact us via email or via telephone on 020 8983 3883

public works
1-5 Vyner Street
London E2 9DG
UK

Posted October 9, 2009 16:52 by Andreas Lang

Wednesday 7th October 2009, 11am – 5pm
Grizedale

ixia and Situations have developed a series of Seminars framed by a provocative response to the statement: “What Public Art Needs Now!”

Adam Sutherland giving a tour of Lawson Park.

One of the primary roles allocated to public art within regeneration projects and cultural tourism is its contribution to place-making. Whilst many commissioners have now begun to take a more long-term, ‘embedded’ approach to developing a curatorial programme in response to their immediate contexts, they recognize the value of outsiders to the development of an ongoing programme. This Seminar looks at the relationship between the local and the outsider and public art as the result of that encounter.

Grizedale Arts has adapted the residency model as a means of sustaining a practice-in-place, but has highlighted the need for artists/curators to research, engage with and contribute to an ongoing engagement with the specific context of Cumbria from an outsider’s perspective.

This Seminar will look at the development of public art projects employing and adapting residential models of commissioning by considering some of the following questions:
• How can public art commissioning employ the residency model as a means of sustaining local engagement and audience participation?
• What are the challenges and pitfalls of negotiating an unfamiliar context as a visiting artist?
• What are the benefits and the shortfalls of being a resident commissioner?
• Is a residency or sustained period of fieldwork/research always required?

Public Art Needs Outsiders is organised by IXIA and Situations

Posted October 5, 2009 09:07 by Andreas Lang