Habitat/Variations, BAC, Genève
From June 23 until September 2, 2007
Opening on June 22, 2007, from 6pm
Symposium: Saturday, June 23, 2007, from 2 to 7 pm, directed by the architect Juan Herreros
Upon invitation of the Centre d’édition contemporaine and of the Centre d’Art Contemporain at BAC – Bâtiment d’art contemporain, Geneva
Where to live, and how? This exhibition offers a reflection on projects by artists and architects who think about living conditions and challenge this question in their work. These projects come from various contexts that, for the major part, are situated at the junction of architecture and art, Utopia and reality, individual and collective space. Some of these projects document very active emerging urban forms and ask complex economical, political, and social questions which traditional notions of urbanism disregard.
If we think of the city as “a series of strata and styles, of icons and cultural practices which bring together constructions from the past, tradition, as well as these new projects and ideas for the future”1, can the different projects that will be presented really transform, or at least question, the way specialists, the State and users tackle the problem of living conditions?
Similarly, as the architect Juan Herreros has noted, “housing projects cannot be conceived any longer from the perspective of the systematic expulsion of some populations to the outskirts of the cities. Housing programs must become driving forces in the transformation of the use and image of public space. One shouldn’t build only apartment buildings anymore.”2 To establish connections and create exchange networks between concerned actors (artists, architects, politicians and inhabitants) can generate new strategies in term of living conditions.
Exhibition area
A project by María Inés Rodríguez, independent curator (Paris), together with Juan Herreros and Pablo León de la Barra
Exhibition coproduced with La Casa Encendida, Madrid.
Screenings, prototypes, photographs, installations and interventions.
Featuring: Alexander Apóstol, Pablo León de la Barra, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Sergio Cabrera, Raúl Cárdenas, Santiago Cirugeda, Jimmie Durham, Didier Fiuza Faustino, Yona Friedman, José Luis Guerín, Juan Herreros, Jakob Kolding, Catalina Lozano, Josep-María Martín / Raphaël Nussbaumer / Alejandra Ayala / Luz Muñoz, Hans-Walter Müller, N55, Maria Papadimitriou, Marjetica Potrc, Tercer un Quinto, Pedro Reyes, Pia Rönicke, Gabriel Sierra and Barbara Visser.
Works area – symposium
This area will hold a symposium, directed by the architect Juan Herreros, Saturday June 23, from 2 to 7 pm. With Santiago Cirugeda, Philippe Rahm, Kees Christiaanse, Anne Lacaton and Salvador Pérez Arroyo.
Video Program
With Alexander Apóstol, Sergio Cabrera, José Luis Guerín, Pablo León de la Barra, María Papadimitriou, Marjetica Potrc et Pia Rönicke.
Library
A reference library will be situated in the work area. It will make available to the public books and documents, selected by the exhibition’s participants, as well as fanzines, novels and various brochures. At the end of the symposium, the most significant of the speakers’ texts will be collected in a publication edited and overseen by María Inés Rodríguez and Catalina Lozano.
Activation area
For this project, produced in collaboration with the architect Pablo León de la Barra, a workspace entitled “Zone d’activation” (ZdA) will be conceived. It will reunite the constitutive elements of the project: exhibition, library, workspace, symposium, video projection room, each element being independent but belonging to the same ensemble.
The exhibition will be presented at La Casa Encendida in Madrid from September 20 to November 5, 2007; the second part of the symposium will also take place in November (for the program see : www.lacasaencendida.com).
