CROSS COUNTRY RURAL PUBLIC SPACE UNDER CONSTRUCTION

In a year long residency with Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridgeshire - UK Torange Khonsari from ‘public works’ explored the role and significance of public space within a rural context. Finding that public paths are prominent spaces within rural public realm public works set out to temporarily expand and occupy a particular public path linking Wysing art centre with the Village of Bourn.

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 March 10, 2008 09:18 by Log

As part of the "Can you show me the space"
Programme at Stanley Picker Gallery in Kingston,
public works together with City Mine(d)
would like to invite you to a round table on
Mapping on-site and on-line
Urban cartography and relational mapping instruments

On Wed 23 January 2008
6 pm - 7.30 pm
At Stanley Picker Gallery

public works, City Mine(d), Dorian Moore, Towards and Christian Nold
are holding a round table on the role of cartography in their work.
The participants share a quest for ways to collect and re-distribute
information directly from users of urban space, but differ in the
instruments they use - from pencil and paper to state of the art
technology- ; the way they treat their outcomes – from barely archiving to
glossy publications -; and the aims they have with this work - revealing
subjective knowledge or informing a further process.

The round table is an occasion to discuss these different ways of working
next to each other. Conclusions will be compiled into an essay that will be
published in a fanzine.

"Can you show me the space" Fanzines
public works has been publishing fanzines alongside the events and work
going on at Stanley Picker Gallery.
Fanzines, at £ 2 each, so far include

Fanzine 01 "setting a setting" together with Can Altay
Fanzine 02 "Mapping Relational Space"
"Building Stories"
Fanzine 03 "Architecture as Extended Social Space"

Posted January 22, 2008 16:43 by Log

public works has organised a two month programme of presentations, mapping workshops, exhibition and publications for Stanley Picker Gallery, which will open to the public on Wednesday 28 November.

We will give a talk about the issues and reasons behind "Can you show me the space" at 5.30 pm, followed by launch of exhibition and first project fanzines from 6.30 - 8.30 pm.
Running up to the launch we have been collaborating with Can Altay on the collaborative setting up of the different elements in the gallery space.

For programme updates visit www.stanleypickergallery.org
Click to download full poster and programme ->show_me_the_space.pdf

Can you show me the space points to a conceptual and practical need within design disciplines, to capture, visualise and acknowledge social and informal phenomena as part of architectural production. The reproduction representation of space within design/architecture is primarily focused on the description of the built form. Everyday life demonstrates that programmes and social networks are not confined to single built structures. Instead they spread across sites, time and relationships, and create new networks of spaces that we all use but almost never acknowledge or recognise as spatial constructs. Can you show me the space offers different public platforms to explore five theme-based blocks: Setting a Setting; Representation of Relational Spaces; Mapping the Centre of Useless Splendour; Architecture as Extended Social Space and Relational Mapping Tools. Each block will result in a fanzine of visual material accompanied by a commissioned essay, available throughout the exhibition and launched at the end of the exhibition as a compiled publication.

With contributions by: Agents of Change (London), Alex Warnock Smith (London); Anna Mansfield (London); atelier d’architecture autogérée (Paris); Can Altay (Bristol/Ankara), Citymin(e)d (Bruxelles/London); Dorian Moore (London); drmm architects (London); Elizabeth Price (Kingston/London); Markus Miessen (London); Peter Arlt (Linz); Polly Brannan (London); Robert Mull (London) and others.

public works is the current Stanley Picker Design Fellow at the Faculty of Art, design & Architecture at Kingston University.

Posted November 20, 2007 22:38 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

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

During the tour on a roof in Hackney Wick overlooking the Olympic site

Julian introducing Clays Lane Estate before the screening of 'The Games' in Clays Lane Community Centre.

Still from 'The Games' by Optimistic Productions

Public works together with Optimistic Productions are organising a one day workshop and tour of the Olympic site in Stratford on Thursday the 8th of June 2007. A group of 14 master students in urban planning from the university of architecture in Oslo, Norway will join the tour and produce an ad hoc alternative tour guide to the Olympic site.

The day will start of with a bus tour across the site organised by Newham Council, followed by a screening of optimistic production’s film ‘The Games’ in the Clays Lane community centre. After Lunch at Rosie’s Cafe the day will conclude in the Manor Gardens allotments where the tour guide will be assembled.

Clays Lane community centre

public works in collaboration with

Posted June 8, 2007 10:00 by Kathrin Böhm

OPEN MARKET. THE OBJECT AS A RESULT AND A START

public works is organising an informal discussion on the role of the
object/product within the circle of production and consumption.

Wednesday 23 May 2007, from 2.00 – 4.00 pm
at the Serpentine Gallery, London, with

Wapke Feenstra, artist, Rotterdam and member of myvillages.org
Dr Jaime Stapleton, Associate Research Fellow in the School of Law at Birbeck, University of London and external consultant to the World Intellectual Property Organisation
Prof Mike Hitchcock, Director of the International Institute for Culture, Tourism and Development at LMU, editor of the book “Souvenirs, The Material Culture of Tourism”
Sally Tallant/Louise Coysh, Special Projects and Education Programme, Serpentine Gallery
Adam Sutherland, Director Grizedale Arts, Lake District
Kathrin Böhm and Andreas Lang from public works

A mapping workshop to trace some of the current produce on offer in Kensington Gardens will start at 11.00 and is open to the public.

The object as a result and a start
In 2004 public works have devised a project called Park Products for the Serpentine Gallery, which was based on the concept of using local resource (cultural, social and material) to be transformed into new products, which were bartered from a mobile stall that was roaming Kensington Gardens. The idea was to use the concept of an informal economy to initiate a new social and cultural space within the park and to create an extension to the gallery as a space for cultural production and consumption.

Three years later we want to revisit some of the issues and open a more general discussion.
We invited a number of practitioners and researchers who are involved in generating and analysing cultural production as a public good.

We want to use the afternoon to talk about the active potential of objects and artefacts in regards to the social and public realm they circulates within. How much do they represent a process and how much can they suggest/initiate a new process? Can objects stimulate new social exchange and networks, and what qualities would the object need to embody?

This is part of Local Operations (23 May - 1 July 2007) is a free series of self-organised events, talks, screenings and workshops by writers, curators, theorists, independent groups, not-for-profit spaces and students at The Sackler Centre of Arts Education at the Serpentine Gallery. All discussions will be available as free podcasts from www.serpentinegallery.org after the events.