Public talk and workshop in Saint Petesburg

Last April, i Collective represented by Natalia Hosie and Zuloark represented by Juan Chacón offered a public lecture followed by a 2-day workshop in the frame of the Week of Germany in Saint Petesburg, invited by Aleksandra Nenko, coordinator of Arts for the City, an international platform for experimenting and discussing art practices that make the city more vivid and livable.

With a large attendance, the public lecture entitled DIY Culture: Open Code and Prototype, took place on Friday, April 15, at Taiga.

The following weekend, 23 professionals previously selected through an open call attended the workshop Prototyping Infrastructure for Public Spaces at Klass Truda open studio. The participants had different profiles. Among them there were: urbanists, activists, sociologists, carpenters and architects.

On Saturday, the group visited Tovstonogov square. The goal was to detect and analize the square´s main characteristics in order to propose a site specific artistic intervention. Beyond making notes and drawings, there was an intensive exchange about participant´s favourite public places, pointing out the concepts that would better define them. Afterwards, the multidisciplinary groups that were formed started to outline the first ideas for an intervention in that public place, which would help making its atmosphere more lively for the users.

On Sunday, the groups worked on the documents for the presentation of the different proposals (texts, drawings, videos, sketches, miniatures, etc). At the end of the day, there was a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of every prototype based on each group´s presentation.

The following week, Aleksandra Nenko organized an exhibition with the outputs of the workshop, inviting a jury to evaluate the proposals and select the most suitable to be realized. The members of the jury were representatives of Posadskiy´s municipal district, representatives of the dwellers union, the director of the Troitskaya library, and independent experts. Local residents, professionals and creatives were present in the audience. Read more about it here.

We would like to thank the participants for their commitment and Arts for the City for the invitation!

Arts for the City was launched by the European Union National Institutes of Culture (EUNIC) and the Centre for German and European Studies (St.Petersburg State University – Bielefeld University). Aleksandra Nenko is Arts for the City coordinator and chief idea creator. The event was kindly supported by Friedrich Ebert Foundation, German Consulate in St. Petersburg, Center for German and European Studies, and Posadskiy municipal district.

Pictures in this post by Natalia Hosie.