FURNISH ME! : DIY/Recycling Product Design Workshop Summer 09

Prior to its opening in 2010, CASAMARLES is looking for eight Product Designers/Sculptors to create unique furniture for the house. The workshop will run for 15 days in August and 15 days in September with four individuals each time. CASAMARLES will offer free accommodation for 15 days and two car trips to be decided by the participants. In exchange CASAMARLES expects some help in order to refurnish the space by using the existing old furniture of the house and other discarded furniture that will be collected in the village and in Barcelona. These workshops are mirrored to the project undertaken in Dublin’s Hotel Ballymun by Seamus Nolan and the furniture by Piet Hein Eek and Nina Telstrup.  

The Project would be photographically documented and an exhibition in London and Barcelona is under negotiation.

NOMADIC PROJECTS

Nomadic Projects is a collaborative curatorial partnership based in London formed by Emma Hammar, Louise O'Kelly and Pau Cata. Nomadic Projects aim is to facilitate the promotion of emergin artists whilst documenting communities and specific areas. By questioning traditional gallery displays Nomadic Projects will encourage artists to create histories through documentation and collaboration in order to represent the different realities of an ever-changing urban landscape.
As part of the Hackney Wicked Festival happening on the fist weekend of August 09 Nomadic Projects presents'The Museum of Hackney Wick'

In reaction to the radical changes that will take place in Hackney Wick as a result of the Olympic Games 2012, Nomadic Projects are encouraging local artists, and the community, to document the area in its last moments prior to redevelopment. Having been eradicated from Spitalfields in the 80s, Hoxton in the 90s, and pushed further eastward, is Hackney Wick the last outpost of affordable living for artists in East London? The creative hotbed of artist’s studios and warehouses in the area may soon disappear. The Museum of Hackney Wick is here to stand as a testament to its existence.

Inhabiting a disused shop space at the hub of the festival, The Museum of Hackney Wick is situated in an imagined future where Hackney Wick as we know it has ceased to exist. From this future local artists will speculatively analyse the area’s remains. Objects and documents will be exhibited using a traditional museum aesthetic and will be accompanied by a shop selling Hackney Wick memorabilia, performances and other activities remembering that past now lost forever. The pieces exhibited will be the outcome of commissioned collaborations between artists and the various constituents of Hackney Wick. The aim of the exhibition is to create awareness of the current situation in Hackney Wick, an area due for regeneration as part of the Olympic Games 2012.

Urban Villages in China


e Chinese capital vowed to revamp "urban villages" with filthy and disorderly surroundings and poor sanitation, Xinhua News Agency reported.

The slum-like urban villages, enclosed by skyscrapers and highways, came into being during the Beijing's rapid expansion in the late 1980s. They are the forgotten corners in the course of social and economic development.

As the city is busy preparing itself to host the 2008 Olympic Games, the renovation of urban villages has been placed at the top of the government work agenda.

A detailed plan was released on Monday, during the mayor's working conference, to give a thorough facelift to more than 170 urban villages in the next three years, says the report.

These villages, covering an area of nearly 7 million square metres, account for half of the city's total urban villages. They are located near Olympic venues or within the Fourth Ring Road.

The second phase of the renovation project is expected to start after 2008 for other half, says the report.

The urban villages of Beijing are divided into two categories.

The first includes the areas enclosed by the established urban area. There are 231 such hamlets scattered in eight urban districts of Beijing and usually located in the downtown business area, along railway lines and in large-scale factories such as the Capital Iron and Steel Group.

The second category includes 112 administrative villages - grassroots administrative units consisting of one or more hamlets - located in border areas of towns and counties.

Most of the 343 urban villages are in three districts of Beijing, including the eastern district of Chaoyang, northwestern district of Haidian and southwestern district of Fengtai.

The municipal government has worked out different renovation policies based on the various conditions of the villages, says the report.

If the land use rights have been sold for more than two years and the developer has let the area lay idle, the government will recover the land.

If it is less than two years, the government will set a deadline for the land user to begin construction and may provide subsidies.

As to the areas without any real estate projects, the municipal government and the district governments will work together to resettle the people there, most of whom are migrant workers, and demolish the shabby buildings.