places
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Research Project:
'Meanings of Place', Bauhaus, Dessau, Germany / 2007-8
This research took place in the context of an invitation to participate in the 'EU Urbanism: Border Cities' programme at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. The year-long research programme involved a number of graduate artists, designers, architects and city planners.
In the context of a number of research visits to the cities of Kaliningrad (Russia), Copenhagen (Denmark), and Malmö (Sweden), I developed research around meanings and expressions of 'place', as mediated by each city's strong relationship to a adjacent national border. This research took the form of site visits, video interviews, photographic documentation, writing and theoretical analysis. The research was conducted individually, and at times collaboratively with colleagues.
The research resulted in a number of concrete expressions: a talk Unheimlich Urbanism at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, presenting a photo essay alongside parallel theoretical analysis, and reflecting upon place-identities in parts of the cities of Copenhagen and Malmö; a collaborative essay Kaliningrad in the urbanism magazine MONU (written in three parts, alongside contributions from colleagues Ines Lüder and Dominique Hurth); and the contribution of an essay Here was the Mirimar Cinema, and Here the Pelican Pub to the developing publication project Kaliningrad by photographers Elmar Bambach and Julia Marquadt, and artist Dominique Hurth (contributing an essay).