[artinfo] Simpozion >>City Sharing / Redefinind Orasul<< 20 - 21 mai, Bucuresti

[Irina Cios]

'City Sharing'

A cross-culture Investigation on Communities and urban space

Symposium

Saturday, 20.05.2006 10:00 -18:00

Sunday, 21.05.2006 10:00 -13:00

Will take place in Bucharest, University of 
Architecture & Urban Planning "Ion Mincu"

Str. Academiei, nr. 18 -20, SALA FRESCELOR (Frescos Hall)

http://www.citysharing.ch

A Swiss - Romanian co-operation organized by:

PROJEKT ART+, Zurich

The International center for Contemporary Art - ICCA, Bucharest

New Gallery, Bucharest

University of Architecture & Urban Planning "Ion Mincu", Bucharest

foreword:

Fragmentation of social structure and urban space is an acute
phenomenon in these days contemporary society has to cope with.
Therefore, one of the major challenges of our time is how to manage
difference and diversity. To what extent a community accepts
difference and diversity, and at what point assimilation or exclusion
are claimed is a manifold process. The relevant cultural, social,
political and economic factors are as diverse as the actors involved
in this interplay between tolerance, integration, assimilation and
exclusion. This dynamic process is daily negotiated in public as well
as in private space.

In cities the problematic of difference and diversity, inclusion and
exclusion becomes visible and palpable as a sort of real metaphor.
But at the same time urban structures are parts of this process by
regulating and organizing the interaction between different social,
ethnical, cultural as well as political and economic communities and
individuals. Urban structures create distinguished spaces and
facilitate or impede the interaction between them. They offer the
possibility of encounter but also of demarcation and exclusion. So,
on one hand we have to ask to what extent urban planning considers
specific communities; on the other hand we have to investigate the
question what strategies communities develop in order to appropriate
given urban structures.

The two day symposium will bring together cultural information from
the two urban cultures (Switzerland and Romania), voiced by experts
in the domains of architecture, science, politics and visual arts.
The presentations will focus on various aspects of visual
communication in the urban space. But we not only want to investigate
the visual strategies professionals use to address the public in
urban space; we also want to analyze by what means different
communities become visible in the public space. The perspectives
considered in the symposium will represent different disciplines and
institutional backgrounds. Individual initiatives will be as
important as actual municipal projects and theoretical discourse.
This variety of approaches will not only launch a cross-disciplinary
reflection about visuality and urban life, but will also value the
potential of participative processes, and encourage citizens and
communities to take part actively in the shaping of urban space.


  Participants:

Matei Bejenaru ö Artist and Curator, president of the Vector
Association Iasi, initiator of cARTier project ö urban regeneration
of Tatarasi neighborhood, Iasi.

AndrŽ Bideau ö Architecture Theoretician and Critic. Lecturer at the
University of Architecture in Vaduz, Lichtenstein.

Elisabeth Blum ö Architect and Theoretician. Research and
publications in the field of city development and public space.

Irina Cios ö Curator, director of the International Centre for
Contemporary Art Bucharest

Calin Dan  ö Artist, Theoretician, Director of Hand Milked Visions
Foundation, Amsterdam

Erik Dettwiler ö Artist. Member of the Swiss Institute in Rome.
Lecturer at F+F, School for Art and Media Design, Zurich.

Barbara Emmenegger ö Sociologist. Lecturer at the University for
Social Work in Lucerne. Until end 2005 Project Manager at the
Department for Urban Development, City of Zurich.

Augustin Ioan ö Architect and theoretician, Professor at the
University of Architecture and Urban Planning ãIon Mincu, Bucharest

Heidi Kaspar ö Geographer. Research Assistant at the Department of
Geography, University of Zurich (Research Project "Sustainable
design, management and appropriation of urban public parks").

Iosif Kiraly ö Artist, Architect, Professor at the Art University in
Bucharest (Visual research of post-communist and vernacular
architecture in Romania)

Vera Marin ö Architect, President of the Association for Urban Transition

Dominique Oehler ö Historian. Co-director of the civil initiative
"Stadt-Labor" in Zurich.

Serban Sturdza ö Architect, Professor, President of the Romanian
Guild of Architects

Susann Wintsch ö Curator and Art Historian, Writer and Editor in the
field of contemporary art, Research and Project Manager in different
projects dealing with art in public space.



For more information please contact:

The International Center for Contemporary Arts

Centrul International pentru Arta Contemporana

Bd. Mircea Voda nr. 5, sector 3
RO ö 030661 Bucuresti

T/F +4021 322 8159, + 4021 322 9005
info at icca.ro