Social
Spaces

New publication, as the result of a practice-based research project in Ghent:

Riet Steel, Elly Van Eeghem, Griet Verschelden & Carlos Dekeyrel, Reading Urban Cracks: Practices of artists and community workers, a publication of Hogeschool Gent & MER. Paper Kunsthalle, 2012.

+ the launch of a new digital platform for the mapping of  ‘localised artistic practices’, as from 9 March: www.locart.be

As part of my (Ben Hagenaars) research project  Cultivating Communities, I organised a workshop at the NME seminar (Natuur en Milieu educatie dag) in Brussels last week. 25 stakeholders within the field of environment and education participated in the workshop. The aim was to visualise a fictional map of a network between different schools. I used the MAP-it toolkit – developed by social spaces – which normally uses sticker icons to visualise a map. However, I made some alterations since I wanted to add some extra features like building blocks to make the map more tangible. This idea originates from a presentation I took part in during the Sustainable Summer School organised by REcentre last summer. For this presentation we didn’t want to use PowerPoint to visuals our concept – a food system for the city of Maastricht – but we built a miniature city out of materials we could scavenge in the surrounding area. This made it really easy to talk about the food systems with local famers, citizens and other stakeholders. It enabled us to work out a scenario of our concept, but more importantly it enabled other people to ad ideas of their own to the existing map. A fragment of the presentation can be found in this video by REcentre (starting from minute 7:41).

The 10th European Academy of Design Conference – Crafting the Future – has as conference theme: designer´s practice knowledge. Or how can the specific knowledge of designers be brought forward, articulated, made visible and be understood and used in contexts like innovation, business development and social change?

The conference will take place in Gothenburg (Sweden), from 17-19 April 2013.

The organizing committee is pleased to invite proposals for papers to the following tracks:

1. Designing Future Mobility
2. Design Development of Future Homes for Future Cities
3. Design and Innovation
4. MAKING TOGETHER – Open, Connected, Collaborative
5. The craft of design in design of service
6. Fashion Design for Sustainability
7. Design history as a tool for better design
8. Power to the People: Practices of Empowerment through Craft
9. Design & Craft (Crafting the Education of Design)

For more information and timing, consult the conference website

Two Social Spaces researchers and four Media, Arts and Design Faculty students are in London this week to participate in the Royal College of Art Methods Lab ‘Ageing in Kensington’. Tonight we will present our mapping and our Touch of Memory project. A report will follow soon!

During her workingperiod in Kilpisjärvi, Rosanne van Klaveren gave a workshop at the Small Projects gallery in Tromsø about arctic food in general and about her FOOD RELATED project in particular. After a short presentation and introduction to the online platform at  www.foodrelated.org, a very usefull mapping was made with the MAP-it tool developed by Social Spaces collegues. The participants also worked with cultural probes to focus more on the experience, meaning, future and difficulties of food within the circumpolar north.