Wasteland Twinning Network Forum
At ZK/U – Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, Berlin
An exploration of urban wastelands and networked transdisciplinary practice
www.wasteland-twinning.net/forum
The Wasteland Twinning Network Forum will bring together the international project partners of the Wasteland Twinning Network from Europe, Asia, USA and Australia. Hosted at the Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, the Forum will feature presentations, guest speakers, critical debates, Twinning Ceremonies, wasteland interventions and workshops.
Representatives from the various Network locations will present wasteland sites, the associated projects and the questions that they evoke. For example, Yogyakarta’s Bon Suwung Collective will address the social relations and property conflicts arising from the use of the land by a squatting community. Alongside the presentation of their ongoing programme of research, experimentation and public events, Wasteland Twinning Nottingham asks: what is the impact of artists focusing on undeveloped urban sites? Is ‘cultural capital’ created, and what are the implications of this?
Guest speakers from parallel practices of urban geography, art, activism, and architecture, will highlight wastelands as spaces continually recreated by a complex web of social, natural, economic, and technological worlds. Following the scheduled events, registered participants are invited to join project partners and guest speakers for dinner.
Throughout the Forum, Wasteland Twinning Ceremonies will be conducted. In an act of ‘reverse postcolonial exoticism’, a Twinning Agreement between the Sydney and Kuala Lumpur wasteland sites will be forged at a critical moment in their parallel cycles of urban land use. Wasteland sites in Berlin and Amsterdam will celebrate their agreement to undertake a Non-Twinning Relationship.
Europe and Asia will share centre stage in debates: from migration and subcultures in Guwahati and Berlin, to land rights and ecology in Yogyakarta and Nottingham. A resident laboratory will analyse objects and samples of physical material gathered from wasteland sites across the Network. The Forum will be the launch of Recreation Ground: a trilateral collaborative project between the Network partners in Berlin, Nottingham and Amsterdam.
Wasteland Twinning Network Co-directors:
Matthias Einhoff, Will Foster, Lars Hayer, Alex Head and Paulina Olszewska.
From the Network:
Rebecca Beinart, David Bell, Mathew Trivett (Wasteland Twinning Nottingham UK), Sonal Jain (Desire Machine Collective IN), Lena Obergfell (Sydney AU), Ansgar Reul (W139 NL),Ferdiansyah Thajib (KUNCI Cultural Studies Center ID), Saubin Yap (Rumah Air Panas Art Society MY).
Guest speakers:
Benjamin Brace (UK), Tore Dobberstein (Complizen DE), Sofia Donna (GR), Mathew Gandy (UK), Annette Maechtel (DE), Stef Richter and Romy Richter (Burghard DE),Skulpturenpark Berlin_Zentrum (DE), Jan van Duppen (NL).
The wasteland Twinning Network Forum is supported by:
European Cultural Foundation | Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) | Creative Encounters- Arts Network Asia | Arts Council England