Intervening the Urban Void__________________________________________
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With its high percentage of foreigners and tourists, Amsterdam is
considered an international town. Surinamese, Moroccans, foreign
students and illegal inhabitants strive for integration in a
Calvinistic and liberal way of life. The medieval town is preserved
as a national cultural monument - access to living space in the city
centre is regulated through waiting lists, illegal sub-renting, and
real-estate speculation. Large-scale restructuring plans try to
reverse suburban ghettoisation while the city expands northeast on
recently gained land. The general ambience of Amsterdam radiates a
sense of content and wealth. Integration and adaptation are
frequently used terms to communicate migration-related questions and
cultural conflicts. Bureaucratic regulation interferes in all areas
of life as an underlying factor in order to establish, maintain or
profit from a legal status in the Netherlands.

By choosing the title Intervening The Urban Void, we would like to
question whether the Dutch model realises a western utopian society
or alienates its inhabitants from individual choices and intuitive
ways of living. The void, understood as a lack of contact and
communication, as a limit to creativity and decision-making and a
lack of awareness of the potential of self-determination in an urban
environment, is the phenomenon we would like to examine in this
research.

In our selection of participants we have chosen international
artists, theorists, architects, and graphic designers - independent
and informal initiatives that have developed strategies of analyses,
community forming and communication in their own practice. Each group
or participant meets the terms of a socially-aware strategist,
introducing significant perspectives to a public debate.

Public Space With A Roof, as an autonomous artist-run space, will try
to enrich the dialogue amongst international practitioners and will
conduct their appliance within an Amsterdam context by launching a
public research which falls into four sub-themes. We aim to examine
artistically and politically motivated tendencies which address the
phenomenon of individual isolation in the city. Striving for a
transparent research process and providing in-depth information, we
will enable constructive communication amongst the project
participants as much as amongst participants and the public. Within a
research format which combines dialogue, intervention, visual
presentation and information, we aim to present artistic approaches
which promote a re-consideration of stagnated relationships between
users and creators of public space.

We would like to start our research with the following set of
questions: How much regulation is needed to guarantee freedom? Who is
included in and excluded from that freedom? To what extent is the
isolation from social processes a conscious, personal and willing
choice? What potentials of self-organisation, improvisation,
autonomous decision-making and spontaneity are dismissed through
regulation? Can some of these potentials be refreshed and considered
in a new light? Can suggestions emerge from comparison with other
metropolises? Which potentials can be recognized by considering
strategies of architectural analyses, critical discursive practice,
the examination of psychological and emotional qualities of
environments and voluntary articulation in cities?


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