Women from the village of Höfen, together with the London based Product Designer Angelika Seeschaaf have again developed and produced a series of new Höfer Goods, which will be presented as part of this year’s village fete; together with other local specialities.

Höfer Goods capture narratives, skills and materials from the village. At the same time they’re addressing the history of the village and issues of contemporary rural production.

In 2006 the Höfer Goods reflected the village’s nickname “ The Frogs” and
the history of local porcelain manufacturing. In 2007 the products have been developed around the idea of “textiles” and “containers” and result e.g. in a Weck-jar-lamp and gossip bags.

Höfer Goods has been initiated by Kathrin Böhm from public works, who is also a member of myvillages.org. She has started this project in her home village as part of the Our Villages series, to connect with and contextualise contemporary art practice in a rural context, and within a growing international network of rural cultural practices.
This year the artist Wapke Feenstra will be present with goods from her Frisian home village, and the UK based arts organisation Grizedale Arts has sent some of their local produce.

For more information visit www.myvillages.org

Links partners:
www.publicworksgroup.net
www.grizedale.org
www.wapke.nl
www.antjeschiffers.de

Posted October 2, 2007 20:00 by Kathrin Böhm

Welcome to the Garden fete is taking place at the CUBE on Peel Precinct, in the heart of the community of South Kilburn. Local resideints will be creating competions for families, including a paper areoplane race! Some residnets will be selling there home made cakes and own grown friut and veg! Could this could be the start of something? A market? A Gardening Community Group?come rain or shine we will be there re planting the plant boxes that have been neglected for so long, so come join us and bring a shovel to help plant thye new gardens!

Posted September 29, 2007 15:15 by Log

Where does the speculation start and finish?

Invited contributors speculate on a fictional future of one of their projects and illustrate a fictive scenario in text, image or collage.

We asked 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 was 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.

The Fanzine was produced and published to accompany Friday Session_21, which will took place on Friday 14th September at public works studio London, and is co-hosted with Book Works, who launched publications by Luca Frei and Alun Rowland that same evening.

The Fanzine is an A4 portrait format, copied next door, and sold at cost price of £2. Please contact public works should you wish to obtain a copy.

With Contributions by:
Richard Basbaum, Nicoline van Harskamp, Jaime Stapelton, Torange Khonsari/public works, Wapke Feenstra, Andreas Lang/public works, Can Altay, Celine Condorelli, This is not a Gateway (TINAG), Kathrin Böhm/publicworks, Polly Brannan/public works, Jens Brandt/Supertanker, Kaija Vogel/General Observation, Shool of Missing Studies, Orgacom, Architecture Sans Frontiere, Sam Britton, International Festival, Peter Arlt, City Mine(d), If-Untitled Architects, Markus Miessen/European Kunsthalle, AAA Architects, Elizabeth Price, D-Squared

Posted September 18, 2007 10:39 by Log

A mobile archive designed by public works and commissioned by
Grizedale Arts for Creative Egremont.

The Folk Float Launches
This week the Folk Float took to the streets of the West Cumbrian town of Egremont. A milk float has been adapted to host and tour this new mobile archive of diverse local memorabilia. At the heart of the collection are items from the Crab Fair Archive Committee, a group set up to document the town's iconic annual celebration, the Crab Fair, in which famous folk events like climbing the 'Greasy Pole' and the 'World Gurning Championship' take place. However, the Float also invites anyone to bring along pictures, stories or souvenirs relating to the town of Egremont, to be included in the Folk Float's evolving display. In addition to being an exhibition on wheels, the Folk Float is open to everybody as a place to meet and talk. Over the coming 6 weeks tour it will build up a portrait of Egremont today as well as the Egremont of the past.

Donations can include anything from a family portrait, a CD of local music, a home-grown vegetable, a winning lottery ticket, or the latest Egremont joke: On its first outing donations included a photo of a prize pet lurcher, a giant courgette and a boxing trophy.

The larger ambition of the Folk Float is to develop and extend a grass-roots interest in local heritage and to support proposals for a permanent community archive in the town. The Folk Float is vital in informing this new type of local museum, and aims to become a critical tool in generating its remit. The direct engagement of the Folk Float with its audience builds up a unique understanding of how a future museum can manifest itself both physically and as an activity.

The Folk Float is a Creative Egremont initiative curated by Grizedale Arts and Karen Guthrie. Artists / architects public works were commissioned to create the mobile museum and archive.

Folk Float from Afar
A website accompanies the Folk Float, featuring a mobile phone blog. Pictures of exhibits and participants are immediately posted live online, straight from the Folk Float phone from wherever it is roaming. You're also invited to play 'Fantasy Folk Float' from the website - just email a picture of something that's significant to you and we'll post it online.

www.folkfloat.org

Click file to download press release: ffloat_pressrelease.doc

Posted September 4, 2007 21:54 by Kathrin Böhm

Think Beach: Experiments in Place Making
6-8pm 14th August, Bristol Urban Beach.

The urban renaissance is now ten years old. But can we yet call it a great
age of cities? In the last great age- the Victorian era- cities created all sorts
of new inventions- public baths, parks, museums, libraries- all new ways to
meet public need during a period of dramatic economic and social change.
In contrast the urban renaissance is in danger of dissolving into a formula
of luxury apartment blocks and bendy bridges. This event will explore
how cities can get better at prototyping new kinds of urban spaces, places
and buildings that meet our 21st aspirations and life-styles.

Speakers:
Chair: Dominic Murphy Director of Creating Excellence South West
Speakers: Andreas Lang from public works.
Inderpaul Johar Zero Zero

For more info see pdf:
think_beach_experiments_in_place_making_briefing.pdf

Posted August 13, 2007 18:06 by Log

Building stories project started its first phase of research and development in Qazvin, a small town an hour west of Tehran in Iran. Starting from collecting narratives from Qazvin residents turning them into a performance which will finally lead to a building stories centre, a new build piece of architecture on the site of the phase1 performance.

Posted August 2, 2007 08:57 by Torange Khonsari

publishing public works showed their recent Friday Sessions Fanzine production and the full series of Stand Aside issues, designed and compiled by Polly Brannan for the Granville Cube project in Kilburn, London.
A MASSIVE THANK YOU to Deepa Naik and Trenton Oldfield from This Is Not A Gateway for helping out on the stall during the fair!

Posted July 29, 2007 21:19 by Kathrin Böhm

The Folk Float, a mobile archive to tour Egremont this summer is currently being built. A milk float is being adapted to host the existing and growing local archive, and to offer social space for meetings, screenings, workshops, chatting and hanging out.
The Folk Flaot has been commissioned by Grizedale Arts for their ongoing Creative Egremont project.

Posted July 24, 2007 09:38 by Log

public works is now registered as publishers (publishing public works), and will be presenting their recent fanzines at this year's Publish and Be Damned Fair at Rochelle School, Arnold Circus, London on Sunday 29th July from 2-7pm.

Posted July 10, 2007 09:53 by Log

Stanley Picker Fellows in Design, public works will hold a one day mapping workshop in the former Stanley Picker Fellows Studio in the Stanley Picker Gallery at Kingston University on Wednesday 11th July 2007.

The workshops aims to trace and visualise the spaces of research within the fields of Art&Design at Kingston University, with a focus on the social contexts, encounters and relationships which underpin its development and dissemination. Feedback and knowledge gained in the workshops will be used to inform plans to redevelop the studio as a resource for future faculty research.

The workshops form part of the public works fellowship research and will inform their exhibition in the Stanley Picker Gallery in November 2007. As part of their fellowship public works wants to establish links and explore overlaps with faculty members and will be around to introduce themselves and their work.

Posted July 3, 2007 11:37 by Log