“Big plants” and public space
Another shitty definition of public space: trees, big plants (wtf?), coffees and art.
Public space is for MAKING, not for CONSUMING.
Developers don't make public space, EVERY BODY does.
Public bodies make space.
Surface questions
Urban citizenship questions -
Research questions -
Which signs and images do cities show us in public spaces? How many types of signs and images can you identify on a 50m stretch of a high street? And can you question their provenance, legitimacy and contribution equally?
Evidence on surfaces
Activist pavement stencil drawing attention to air pollution in one of central London's busiest roads, near Euston station.
ULEZ stands for Ultra-Low Emission Zone, an area which now covers the entire inner London, and where vehicles have to pay a fixed daily fee if they don't meet certain emission standards.
Evidence from surfaces
Learning from walls in the Italian village of Bussana Vecchia - a self-built artist commune on the ruins of a medieval Italian village.
This place was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1880s and had been abandoned until a few local and international hippies moved in and started rebuilding, to make it into an artist commune.
The historical narrative is that…
Property under litigation
Propriedad en litigio / Property under litigation
Publicly visible display of the ownership status of a building.
Surfaces show law.
Unimelb campus signage
It's the annual Melbourne Centre for Cities symposium today!
So here are ten signs and surfaces from the Parkville Campus of the University of Melbourne to mark the occasion.
All photos May 2023.
No consensus
“Graffiti is understood as an act of dissent because it operates in the mythology that there should be a consensus.” 💥
- Kostas Avramidis
Satisfying assemblages
The number of hands
The origins of materials
The intentions and purposes
Blank canvas??
The language of real estate and development is often jarring with the lived experiences of the communities where it speaks. It addresses the aspirations of those who are not (yet) there, speaks on their behalf…
Surface musings/ A curatorial note
The most exciting urban surfaces are often the seemingly unremarkable ones, where nothing visually spectacular or agreeable is going on - or where there is little going on to speak of.
A steady oscillation
A measure of porosity
Weather instrument
Receptacle
Disappearing rain drawing
Surface riddles
A few tags, posters, stencils, throwies, stickers, and drawings - and the resulting perception is largely of disorder, of surfaces which need cleaning and bringing back to a state of visual and material stability.
But there is a tipping point from which the tags…