informal urban practices

Our Place is a traveling stall that invites you to take part in an interactive face-to-face and online investigation of space and its manifestations.

Keywords/Concepts:
• Space and Place
• Interaction
• Ownership
• Investigation
• Behaviour
• Community
• Temporality
• Commitment

Themes:

The ‘Our Place’ project will investigate how people engage and think about public space by encouraging people to interact and leave their mark in any way that they feel comfortable.

‘Our Place’ is interested in generating longer-term awareness about the spaces individuals inhabit commitments and documenting how the public reacts to this. It will encourage the public to engage and become active in the space, observing the transition of ‘space’ to ‘place’. They will be invited to take ownership of the project, and share its outcomes, thus learning something of their personal creative abilities that would have otherwise gone undiscovered.

‘Our Place’ is a dynamic and responsive project; the outcomes may vary depending on the site and engagement with individuals.

Methods:

‘Our Place’ will take the physical form of a nomadic stall, spending up to three days at each space. Interaction will take place face-to-face with the assistance of objects, consultation, swapping, conversation, documentation, sharing. Later, the communication, exploration and interaction will continue online, assisted by much documentation.

Regular updates in the form of text, photographs, videos and audio, as well as links to relevant websites will be employed to keep the public interested, informed and tempt them to participate. It will also make the experience more permanent and provide a source of ongoing inspiration

Group 5: Nicholas Rebstadt, Sophie Bain and Lucy Fraser

Gift Exchange Systems and Bartering Exchange Economies

The concept of bartering exchange has been around for thousands of years, well before the first forms of currency came about in China and Ancient Egypt. In war-torn parts of Eastern Europe and Russia during WWII, counterfeit notes were introduced in high quantities by German military forces under Hilter’s orders. This caused confusion over the value of the currency and caused people to adopt a more primitive method of trade without the use of modern money. The Zulu people of South Africa still trade commodities with others in their tribes and other tribes in nearby areas without the use of any form of currency. The value of items are often recognized and understood without much confusion or dispute. The British Columbian (Canada) based tribe Kwakiutl are a small group that traditionally partook in potlatch ceremonies involving the exchange of gifts improving tribe-to-tribe relations in the future aid of commodity exchanges.

1. What interested you about the course?

The DIY and creative uses of unoriginal spaces grabbed my attention, and working with students of other disciplines who may have a different outlook on a project seemed like a great opportunity.

2. What will be your motivation for this course?

I’ve been interested in setting up a market stall selling student wares and will be keen to learn as much as I can about how people sell on the street presently and have done in the past.

3. What would you like to get out of this course?

A better ability to see potential in spaces, objects and scenarios that may not have been intended, a skill I can see coming in handy in the future. I also aim to learn about different insights the interior, landscape and architecture students and guest speakers may have.