Trading Places: book out now!
In September 2017 we launched the book Trading Places: Practices of Public Participation in Art and Design Research. The book is one of the results of an intense collaboration among the six TRADERS partner institutions: Design Academy Eindhoven, Chalmers, Royal College of Art, KU Leuven, HDK – Academy of Design and Crafts, and LUCA School of Arts.
The book can be purchased online:
Trading Places rethinks, develops, and tests design-driven practices and methods to engage with participation in public space and public issues. With this book we aim to help art and design researchers, students, practitioners, and the multiple stakeholders they collaborate with, to explore what participatory ways of working in our contemporary urban environment entail. Six approaches are discussed: intervention, performative mapping, play, data mining, modelling in dialogue, and curating. Each approach offers a different kind of logic and produces a different type of knowledge. Trading Places invites the reader to discover common ground, explore new territories, and exchange points of view – in short, to trade perspectives on issues of participation.
TRADERS – ‘Training art and design researchers in participation for public space’ – is a programme that focuses on developing a methodological framework to work on public space projects in participatory ways. The TRADERS programme explores ways in which art and design researchers can ‘trade’ or exchange knowledge with multiple participants and disciplines in public space projects and – at the same time – trains them in doing so.
TRADERS allows to bundle the strength of disciplines such as art, design, architecture, and urbanism to commonly approach and challenge other disciplines and sectors.
TRADERS opens up the debate about the roles that art and design research can play in engaging people in public space and public issues.
Title: Trading Places. Practices of Public Participation in Art and Design Research
Editors: David Hamers, Naomi Bueno de Mesquita, Annelies Vaneycken & Jessica Schoffelen
Editorial support: Anne van Oppen
Copy-editing: Daniel Lacasta Fitzsimmons
Graphic design printed book: Numa / Merino
e-Book coding and design: dpr-barcelona
Cover and inner illustrations: Ida Elisabet Liffner
2017
ISBN: 978-84-944873-9-2
Formats: paperback | eBook .mobi | ePub
Publisher: dpr-barcelona
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 608299.
Mapping Invisibility
In the design research workshop Mapping Invisibility undocumented immigrants and other participants undertook collective mapping in Amsterdam. The aim was to investigate the day to day practices of undocumented immigrants and to look for ways to make parts of those practices visible and perceptible for others – precisely because much of the life of the undocumented is about invisibility. In the workshop (at least) two cartographers – an undocumented immigrant (guide) and a participant (guest) – walked the city together.
The walk was tracked via a web application on a mobile phone with GPS and visualized in real time on a digital map that could be viewed by others on a website. The undocumented immigrant guided the participant to places which represented a certain emotional feeling for them. On the map, as it evolved, particular places would light up, representing the feeling associated with them. Along the way, the conversation between guide and guest was recorded, and these audio recordings stored in a location-based archive that makes ‘unheard’ stories available to ‘the public’. At the departure point of the original walk, using a mobile phone as a navigational device, at any time, invisible storylines can be downloaded as mp3s. The story remains audible as long as the listener stays on the same route.
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The Pearl Diver
Presently, we encounter a wide variety of ways in which designers tell stories of social innovation. This encouraged us to start a reflection on the idea of storytelling emerging from our practices, and to look at it from multiple perspectives. We have done so through conversations with designers, researchers, philosophers, as well as practitioners and theorists from many different fields who participated in the DESIS Philosophy Talks series about Storytelling and Design for Social Innovation. This volume records the first three years of ongoing discussions about this topic held in different places around the world. We had the opportunity to share practices and experiences and to reflect together on the meanings and values generated by them. With this book we share the first series of reflections and invite you to be part of this experimental process of co-creation of collective knowledge. DAE Reader (Places and Traces) David Hamers has contributed to this book with 'Notes on storytelling as design’.
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The innovative city
Cities are ambitious with initiating far-reaching innovation. Think about setting up test beds and living labs. The essay "De innovatieve Stad" by PBL researcher David Hamers portrays the conditions under which Dutch cities in the fields of economy, green and social can best realize these ambitions. And how they can find a balance between the fields.
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Cities in Europe: data and analysis on the city
CO2 reduction, a healthy environment and good accessibility. The European ambitions for cities are very high. To achieve these ambitions in the European Union, the European Commission, EU Member States and cities are working together to develop an Urban agenda for the EU. In that context, PBL is presenting the infographic publication 'Cities in Europe / Cities in the Netherlands' and the essay 'The innovative city'.
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