Things around us are changing. The combination of the economic crisis, the changes in the way we govern society, and the rise of social media, to name just a few of the big developments (I could have also talked about the ageing societies we live in or the ecological crisis we are facing), seem to spur in people the feeling that we are living in a transition period. That we are living in-between; in between the well- known old, and the yet unknown new. And like I argued in my last post with regard to people taking care of and adding value to public space outside of government, we seem to lack a proper language to talk about this ‘in between’.
In between in itself is mostly seen as something we have to live through, to endure. But maybe there is a different way of dealing with this in-between. Instead of seeing it something we have to live through, we might use it as a way to think through critically and reflexively how we have gone about our business for a long period. So the ‘in between’ then becomes not something instead of the real deal, but be the real deal.
I come – or rather return – to this topic through the work of Ester van der Wiel, who talked at the same meeting as Richard Reynolds which I talked about here. Ester is a Dutch curator and initiator of projects in public spaces. She talked about her latest project: NuHier (NowHere). On their website, they describe NuHier as follows:
NU HIER is an initiative that links vacant sites with users from the neighbourhood, schools, clubs, corporations, and associations. (…)After a party centre went up in smoke, this vacant site awaits a new function, so building ground is reclaimed, if only for a time, as public space. This period can be used as a lab stage before everything has been determined. The transitional stage can even be seen as a way of transforming areas to meet the demands of the market. The great strength of temporary projects is that there is much less opposition to unusual, unfamiliar forms of use and new programmes. This creates opportunities for innovation and experiment. If it works, let’s keep it! If it doesn’t, let’s forget it.
NuHier, in a very elegant way, brings together different parties and uses this temporary space, this interim-time, to create value through working with was is there. These kind of spaces, these platforms, create the ability to bring out assets in and around a neighborhood, put them together in unexpected manners, and see if added value – in whatever form – can be created.
NuHier is certainly not the first case of this kind use of temporary space. I have actually been involved in a very extensive project in The Hague Transvaal in which the whole neighbourhood was in this interim time for a very extended period. Over time, and in phases, large parts of this neighborhood where either demolished or refurbished. This has inspired a group of artist to use this interim time to do research on ‘the role of public art in urban development’(the subtitle of a book which came out afterwards). One of the most inspiring projects they undertook during this period was Hotel Transvaal and the related Laboratory of the interim time.
Hotel Transvaal was a hotel with rooms scattered throughout the district, the rooms where designed by artists and local shopkeepers and were situated in houses not yet demolished. The other facilities (breakfast, dinner, reception where also situated in the district, using existing facilities in the neighbourhood. Hotel Transvaal was for a while ‘the largest hotel in the world’. The Laboratory for the Interim was the think tank for Hotel Transvaal. The facilities of the hotel were offered to researchers from all kinds of disciplines to stay and work in the hotel, thinking through new strategies for urban renewal breaking away from traditional ‘final image thinking’. Instead strategies for working with the interim were developed. I was in one of these ‘lab sessions’ and it was hard work, but also very fun. Fun because you had to deliver a new concept and give a public presentation after three days creating a lot of adrenaline and momentum. But hard because we all soon realized how much we are used of thinking about the future (without making what is there now part of our thinking). Thinking positively and constructively about ‘interim time’ and what we do with it, seems to go against everything we have are used to.
In a different book Iris Schutten, one of the initiators of Hotel Transvaal, tries to put into words why thinking about working with the interim is so hard for us. For her the problem already start with our language for she says:
The Dutch dictionary gives two definitions for ‘interim time’: ‘the time in between two actions’ and ‘the time elapsed during a certain part of a larger project’. This implies two things: according to the first definition, interim time implies regression – action are either before or after interim time. According to the second definition, interim time is not something in itself, but only exist as a part of a wider thing, a longer trajectory, a different plan than the interim time itself, and therefore inferior to the end goal. (my translation)
Our language thus already prohibits us to engage with this temporary space in a positive and direct manner. As something which has worth and meaning of its own. We either close these spaces of with large fence in order to keep everyone out until the work on the actual project starts. Or we ask some artists to temporarily enliven the place, keep it from feeling like a really run down place, again, until the work on the actual projects starts. What Hotel Transvaal and the Laboratory for the Interim asks us to do, is to engage with these places in a different manner. To see this time in between as something to use, to take up, to explore, to work with and to create out of this engagement something new, something different, something unexpected, something you could not foresee before you started the project, but which now, looking backwards feels obvious and the natural thing to do.
Exploring and working with this interim time, this ‘in-between time’ in such a positive manner fits nicely with the kind of asset based approaches that have been addressed in several posts on this blog. And if the times are really changing right now, we might live in a time rife with possibilities, if we are willing to take and explore them. I think these interim spaces are interesting and inspiring in that regard. They show us hidden possibilities and undeveloped potential and they enable us to look from the outside to what we think are normal procedures. But we should be wary not to glorify these spaces. This is nicely brought out in an essay by the philosopher Gijs van Oenen in the same book from which I quoted Iris Schutten.
He argues that we actually already have a Dutch ‘philosophy’ for this interim time, and it is called, ‘gedogen’: a practical temporary solution in which we put the official rules aside, thus creating time and space to find a desirable solution for this particular social phenomena. It’s how we deal with soft drugs, and it’s how we used to deal with squatting. Gedogen is not so much doing nothing, but it’s finding a modus in which all parties involved take part of their responsibilities to come up with a desirable and workable practice. In order to make gedogen work all parties have to take up their responsibility, without being able to fall back on the explicit rules (which would immediately destroy the practice of gedogen). Gedogen, if done right, thus enables social and moral learning. However, for all their value, we should remain critical. For they are fragile solutions. So relying on them as a model might by stretching it too far. Furthermore, because the rules are temporarily set aside, it might just create inequalities and opportunities for those who just want to gain benefits.
Recent Comments