Social
Spaces

Participants sought for the art project ’Short Cut Leuven’ by Stijn Van Dorpe

Short Cut traces an imaginary straight line (a ’short cut’), via a group of walking people, through Leuven. The aim is to form a line and walk a trail between Naamsevest and Engels Plein, straight across private property, public buildings, streets and squares. In this way Van Dorpe reconnects the private to the public, while making us think about topics like “living in the city,” “loss of privacy” etc. More info.

I discovered this very interesting article about the meaning of Participatory Art and how it relates to concepts like space and time. Paul O’Neill - currently also investigating the art in public space landscape in Flanders – makes a difference between three stages of Participatory Art, being relational, social and durational art. While the first relates to what Bischop described as the authored tradition (expert vision), “social art” relates to a more community oriented and de-authored tradition (participatory vision). The third term “durational ” that O’Neill introduces is quite interesting. It gathers the first two terms in one concept (and in that way is able to go beyond a dichotomy) and adds one additional trait, namely time. Durational art produces “work” that keeps on generating social interactions after the artist has left the project site. This is of course very important when artists try to create work for a participatory culture (for more discussion around the concept of participatory cultures, join the discussion online, next wednesday!).

CALL FOR PAPERS: 2010 Conference: “Art on the Street”
The Korean Society of Art Theories, Seoul, KOREA
October 24, 2010

We seek to build upon the recent discussion on public art and community by
investigating specific examples of the practices of contemporary art in
particular contexts. We pay attention to the way in which the process of
creation, perception, and reception of the artwork relates to the formation
of a community. We invite papers on mural projects, site-specific urban
planning projects, parks, public monuments, and other types of
community-oriented projects. Discussions on a project or network of
activities that form relationships among participants and a public are also
encouraged. At the same time, we hope to explore artistic practices that
resist or negotiate in terms of everyday life, localization, globalization,
and social and cultural structures. We also encourage papers that revisit
the issue of memory of community. While proposing art as potential means of
collective empowerment, we aim to investigate art that invokes or produces a
community. All perspectives and methodologies are welcome.

Thursday the 20th Creative Class organizes a Pecha Kucha in Hasselt. Together with Design Platform Limburg, our research group Social Spaces supports this event. A lot of inspiring speakers will be there from very different disciplines (design, architecture, new media,…). When the list of speakers is online, I will let you know, but please note this date already in your agenda. The presenters are preparing!
http://www.creativeclass.be/activiteit?a=1033

Last week a workshop started off at our academy with the title Design for togetherness. It is led by Nik Baerten and Virginia Tassinari. It takes community life as a starting point. Community life has always been the subject of sociology and urban planning, but the field of design also steps in to actively uncover latent needs and potential within communities in order to jointly develop solutions and plant seeds of positive change. When assessing today’s neighbourhoods’ challenges, a crucial ingredient for resilience appears to be a positive sense of togetherness. Socio-cultural megatrends such as the individualization of Western society and the loss of social cohesion are frequently mentioned as threats to this sense of togetherness and consequently to healthy community life. Furthermore, both community members as well local authorities are rediscovering the benefits of resilient communities built around a positive sense of togetherness in contrast to those delegating responsibilities and problem solving strength to third parties. During a 3 month case study, product design and communication & multimedia design students went out into the surrounding former mining neighbourhoods. Their core challenge: How can we – designers and community together – stimulate togetherness through design?