ArkDes Fellowship

While each application addressed the theme “Projecting the Future”, proposals covered a wide array of themes focused on future visions for tackling challenges in built and non-urban environments. An international jury comprising Behzad Khosravi Noori (Konstfack), Liza Fior (muf architecture and art), Maria Lind (Tensta Konsthall) and Nikolaus Hirsch (e-flux architecture) and chaired by ArkDes’ Director Kieran Long, collectively assessed proposals during a seminar at ArkDes in April 2018.

Karin Reisinger

Projecting Futures for Exploited Environments: Staying with the Pit (of Malmberget, Sweden)

Karin Reisinger teaches at Vienna University of Technology (Institute of Art and Design) and a seminar entitled Feminist Ecologies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (Institute of Art and Architecture). She previously undertook a postdoctoral fellowship in Critical Studies in Architecture at the KTH School of Architecture, Stockholm (2016-2017). Karin was key in organising the conference “Architecture and Feminisms: Ecologies, Economies, Technologies” (2016). During previous time in Sweden, she has investigated memories of mining societies with methods of feminist political ecologies. Her work has resulted in book chapters including Abandoned Architectures in Architecture and Feminisms (2018), “Connective Oscillations” in More (forthc. 2018), alongside exhibitions and presentations.

Jury Citations: In her application, Karin touches upon many of the themes that can be read in the wider body of Fellowship proposals. She explores adaptation, ecologies of place, feminist-indigenous-non human perspectives, and the repercussions of intensified extraction on the built and non-urban environment and social landscapes. Her work does this in both a broader macro context and at a micro scale; her project is geographically located in Malmberget, Sweden. The proposal is precise in addressing urgent issues for the future.

Project

Sandi Hilal

Al-Madhafah: The Living Room

Sandi Hilal, born in Bethlehem, Palestine, is based in Stockholm. Together with Alessandro Petti, Sandi has developed a research project based on artistic practice that is both theoretically ambitious and practically engaged in the struggle for justice and equality. In their practice, contemporary art exhibitions are concurrently a site of display, material production, research, and political imagination. The pair have participated in various international exhibitions, among them the Biennale di Venezia (2003-2008-2009-2013-2015), the Istanbul Design Biennial (2009), Home Works Beirut (2010), the Bienal de São Paulo (2014), the Asian Art Biennial (2015), the Marrakesh Biennial (2016), Qalandia International (2016), alongside others.

Jury Citations: Sandi Hilal’s project provides a forceful engagement with theory and practice, relating to the role of guest and host. It is instrumental in stretching beyond the study of migratory experience by following the stories of what happens to people once they cross borders, using Boden, Sweden, as a case study. The proposal has the potential to be transformative and enriching for ArkDes, allowing for new intersections of different stakeholders, activated by hospitality.

Project

Nikolaus Hirsch is a Frankfurt-based architect, editor and curator. He was the director of Städelschule and Portikus in Frankfurt and currently teaches at Columbia University in New York. His realised projects include the Dresden Synagogue (2001), Hinzert Document Center (2006), Cybermohalla Hub (Delhi, 2008-12), Do We Dream Under The Same Sky (with Rirkrit Tiravanija), Museum of Immortality (Mexico City, 2016) and, currently, the conversion of the National Gallery in Prague. Hirsch curated numerous exhibitions at the Portikus, the Folly project for the Gwangju Biennale (2014), Real DMZ (2015), and “Wohnungsfrage” at HKW Berlin (2015). Hirsch is the co-founder and editor of the Critical Spatial Practice series at Sternberg Press and e-flux Architecture.

Liza Fior is a partner of muf architecture/art, a London-based practice working in the public realm (including museums). The practice brings unsolicited research into every project, working with those who know a place in order to articulate the value of the existing before moving onto discussions of the future. muf work primarily in East London, but not exclusively so. They are the only UK winners of the European Prize for Public Space (for Barking Town Square), and were the authors of the British Pavilion at the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale. Liza has taught, lectured and been published internationally.

Behzad Khosravi Noori is an artist, writer and educator based in Stockholm. He has lectured widely and led theory and practice seminars about comparative art history (with a focus on microhistory), Islamicate, as well as research based art practices. His work has been shown in various national and international exhibitions including Tensta Konsthall, Botkyrka Konsthall, MKC in Stockholm, Sakakini, Ramallah Palestine, the Arran Gallery Tehran, and the research pavilion at 2017 Venice Art Biennale. He is currently a PhD candidate at Konstfack’s Fine Art department in collaboration with the Department of Architecture at KTH Stockholm.

Maria Lind is a curator, writer and educator based in Stockholm, and is currently the director of Tensta konsthall. She was the artistic director of the 11^th Gwangju Biennale, the director of the graduate program at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (2008-2010), and director of Iaspis in Stockholm (2005-2007). Between 2002-2004 she was the director of Kunstverein and in 1998, co-curator of Manifesta 2. Lind has taught widely since the early 1990s and is currently professor of artistic research at the Art Academy in Oslo. She has contributed widely to newspapers, magazines, catalogues and other publications. In 2009 Lind was the recipient of the Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement. In 2010 Selected Maria Lind Writing was published by Sternberg Press.