homeroom

A very vivid evening emerged from the presentations of Eliza, Patrick and Sarina. What can art do? What can activism do? What is the role of the media? What is the role of capital in the news market? How can we know what we want to know? And what do we need to know?

The inspired discussion addressed many of the issues concerning an engaged creative practice.

Check out the video of the presentation and discussion

Home-Room #7:
This time the HOME-GROWN event focuses directly on the relations between art and active participation through different mediums, ideological positions and manifestations.
We share our private space for a “SALON” where pro-active minds share how they PARTICIPATE in making a difference.

We invited Elisa Shzu, an activist for Chinese labor conditions; Patrick Meagher, a sculptor, and Sarina Basta, a curator of the Sculptur Center for a discussion about the interplay of Art and Activism.

Elisa Shzu is an activist supporting better working conditions for chinese labor, she organized manifestations. She got into activism in the late 90’s with ethnic and gender issues and affirmative action. Today she is further involved in multiple alternative local movements like the Park Slope Food CooP, Reclaim the Streets, Billionaires for Bush.

Patrick Meagher is a conceptual artist who is concerned with visual and environmental dynamics of architecture, technology an economics. With his critical position he addresses the shifts in media with the wide spread of the internet, and the shifts in perception of iconic vocabulary. Website

Sarina Basta is currently curator at the Sculptor Center in Long Island City. She has curated the recent “Degrees of Remove, Landscapes and Affect” exhibition and organizes the public program. Previously she was manager and designer at the Acconci Studio and has published in different art magazines.

In anticipation of winter, we are reviving our cozy salon series with heated talks, spicy debates and fireside chats focusing on the agency of design. With the current global financial crisis, the ability of architecture and its allied disciplines to reach beyond disciplinary boundaries and to engender an activist approach is ever more critical. How can we as designers participate in the shaping of policies and bring awareness to issues that resonate beyond the specifics of a single project? This season we will be tackling several key issues relating to the theme of the activist architect: the crisis project, the writing (publishing) project, and the artist project. Each will present different critical viewpoints on the role of a designer as it expands beyond the traditional definitions of “architect.”

Home-room is relaunching the new season in November with a new member. Jeannette Kuo, a licensed architect currently teaching at MIT, has joined Axel Haeusler and Silvia Benedito as part of the organizing committee. We look forward to bringing you an exciting season of events and welcome any comments and suggestions.

Book launch at the Swiss Institute of Contemporary Art in New York: East Coast Europe.

Markus Miessen, the editor of: “Did someone say participate” [The book was selected for The Independent’s list of the 10 best architecture books of all time.] is presenting his new book East Coast Europe, which is building on previous work “The violence of Participation”. Miessen is engaging and describing resourceful strategies by which spatial practitioners navigate and radically engage the system.
East Coast Europe is building on previous work “The violence of Participation” and the book launch is also hosted by the Slovenian Institute.

SWISS INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART
Marcus Miessen interview on Archinect

From the outside it probably looked like an insanely impulsive move to uproot my life in New York, quit my job, kiss all my friends farewell, buy a car, and then drive it 1300 miles south to start all over in a city where I knew six people…New Orleans baby! However, if New York can be equated to a steak, I’d say it’s well done, and I prefer rare. So I left a relatively happy life in Brooklyn, but one that felt disconnected from a sense of community, one where I had to plan weeks in advance to hang out with a best friend who lived a block away, and one where 400 square feet of living space compressed by 7 foot tall ceilings with a balcony was considered great. New York is a bitch, and man do I love her, but while she fed me, she sucked my energy and in the back of my mind I needed to make an exit strategy.

I moved to the Big Easy two months ago, just in time for Hurricane Gustav, after visiting some friends for a weekend last April. A couple of opportunities fell into my lap at that moment, and I felt compelled to jump on them. I was offered a part time teaching position at The Department of Landscape Architecture at Louisiana State University, a job managing a vacant lot program with the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, and a 2000 square foot shotgun style house that shares a porch with one of my best friends. On top of all this, there was just some strange magnetic attraction to the place that I couldn’t resist…perhaps the Live Oaks lining the streets dangling Mardi Gras beads from years past is what did it for me.

This is what I’ve learned so far…on the surface New Orleans is covered with linen table clothes, adorned with chandeliers and crystal decanters, but just below this surface is a fluid and volatile culture, bogged down in history, cowboy to the core, wearing its heart on its sleeve, drunk and grappling with the reality of just how fragile its environment really is. It’s raw alright, but I like it like that.

If you are ever down here, please look me up, because I’ve learned a bit about Southern hospitality. In the meantime, check out the links below to find out more about where I work.
NORAWORKS and LSU Art&Design
Cheers,
Abigail

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Finally, we uploaded all our Home-room Videos for stream or download.
Since Wordpress (BlogSoftware) allows easy integration of videos we took another step and reformatted and clipped out video footage.
New home-rooms coming soon since we managed to get this part up to date.
Check the Videos out: >VIDEO TAB

Abigail left New York and the Home-Room team to teach at LSU Art&design in New Orleans.
Above: Goodbye Party with Russian Dinner @ Primorski Restaurant 282 Brighton Beach Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11235

Michael Saur is an independent writer from Germany who moved to New York 14 years ago. He’ll read from his upcoming novel “Rivoli”. We are sure it will be very entertaining and full of curiosities.
Michael Saur is the author of two previous novels and three non-fiction books, all published in German.

“Rivoli”
I am stranded in this nameless place Bob Dylan

“…To have Cecilia to myself for one week put me in an exhilarating mood. The gates to the past went down and shut, and nothing but the moment counted. We Detectives are slaves of the past, servicemen of former events, and even my collection of memorabilia and evidence could wear me down. I embraced the weightlessness that comes without it, the lightness of pure presence. I could afford a week in this no man’s land…”

Osmond, a young police detective of dubious morality, stumbles upon an old movie house in a small town. Still functioning as a theater, the “Rivoli” also is the residence of former film director Max Pendotte, his helper Jones and the beautiful Cecilia. First, the “Rivoli” offers Osmond reprieve from mounting problems, but soon he learns that he has become part of a scheme that exceeds his imagination. He discovers the “Rivoli” to be a place where boundaries between reality and fantasy melt and morph.

A conversation between Michael Saur and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison will appear in “Toni Morrison: Conversations”, University of Mississippi Press, to be released June 2008.

ativ test

ABOUT INFRASTRUCTURE AND THE WORLDBANK
Atif Ansar is analyzing large structures. He’s considering their possibilities, their economical background, their humanitarian impact. His passion for the built environment is also in the center of his professional life with a focus on the economical side. Atif consults with the World Bank - on various infrastructure related projects, many of which have community/ social level development components.

We asked Atif to give us an introduction to the activities of the worldbank along with a case study. He will share from the experience and the knowledge he gained while working at the worldbank concerning the implementations of projects like dams, highways and power-plants, but also on social projects on various scales. We can expect a focus on the XL-scale.
Beyond his work for the World Bank he is developing his own entrepreneurial ambitions in emerging markets. So hopefully he will give us some further insight to his experiences on the money side of construction and architecture.

Martin has his first show in NYC and we’re sure it will be fun to go to the opening.
There will be beer for certain.

Martin is an old friend from Munich Art Academy times of Axel. He works with re-use of material and iconography towards large pieces and environments. The installation has a un-monumental presence referring to Bavarian symbols with used doors. References become real without pretending to hide the fragile temporality in which its matter always exists.
Read more info here.

The home-room room turns more and more into some kind of an office from where Silvia and Axel are doing some architectural work. Recently there were good news: a first price in the Europan competition with the site in the larger metropolitan region of Lisbon. We’re hoping that the competition will develop into a real project, but there is nothing certain.
The preliminary office website under construction

A field trip brought Silva and Axel to Portugal with students of the University of Pennsylvania’s Design School. Organizing the trip kept us busy for another while but it was great to see some great architecture and some great offices. The highlights were the office visits at Alvaro Siza’s and Manuel Aries Mateus’s. The best buildings were the pools and the tea house by Siza, the Casa de Musica by OMA and the soccer stadium in Braga by Souto de Moura (photo).
The picture shows a part of the quarry in which the soccer stadium is enbedded.

October 1st was the day of Architecture. The Architecture association in Porto was hosting a conference in the honor of Fernando Tavora, who had been one of the most influential architects in Portugal. Silvia was the main speaker with her presentation of her research. Preparing the presentation took many late evenings and created a lot of stress. So it was great that a lot of people came although the presentation started late at 10.30 pm.
See a impression of the presentation above.

In August Silvia and Axel went to Brazil to research the historic urbanism of the Portuguese foundations along the Atlantic coast. Silvia had won a travel grant in Portugal and Axel was accompanying her. They (we) saw Natal, Olinda, Racife, Salvador, Brasilia, Victoria, Santos and Rio de Janeiro. The cities were all founded in different urban forms. The urban logics were strategic to the colonizers need and primarily following the demands of accessibility, defense, portable water and agriculture.

Upon researching the history of the urbanism we also came across the bigger picture of Portuguese colonization and thereby unexpectedly the history of sugar and its production. Trip was really revealing on many levels and Axel still needs to write down his enlightening insights about the smart assemblages that created the Portuguese short success story. Silvia already did a blog of the trip, unfortunately only in Portuguese: Premio Tavora Blog

Artist and Architect
Gaëtane Michaux is an architect and artist from Brussels, who lives and works in New York. Her artwork is focused on the urban environment, and uses puzzles at a range of scales as a medium to mix together portraits, images, and building materials.
She was part of the 11 Spring Street project, an event curated by the Wooster Collective, which brought together more than 40 artists from around the world to completely transform the empty shell of the iconic Soho building into a temporary street art mecca. Gaëtane will be presenting her work from the show, as well as what led her to that point and what she has been working on since.

the world to completely transform the empty shell of the iconic Soho building

into a temporary street art mecca. Gaëtane will be presenting her work from