Please visit: www.winterschoolmiddleeast.org

The Winter School Middle East is a localized, small-scale hub, which regularly performs cultural and educational activities in collaboration with local NGOs, schools, and individuals, and -– through its new, long-term presence – houses a critical platform for exchange. Being launched as an idea in 2007, the Winter School Middle East was set up as a roaming, mobile institution that has undertaken a series of workshops, seminars, mini-schools and conferences since its inception in January 2008: ‘“Learning from Dubai’” (2008, Dubai), dealing with the Labour Housing issue, and ‘Spaces and Scales of Knowledge’ (2009, Dubai), dealing with the question of institution building, both in collaboration with the Architectural Association (London), The Third Line gallery (Dubai), and the American University of Sharjah. In 2010, the Winter School is moving to Kuwait for a longer-term involvement and local engagement regarding the setting up of a platform for critical exchange.

Combining the Winter School’s workshop methodology with local initiatives, this intensive workshop-based programme was and continues to be run as a design- and discourse-led curriculum that combines conceptual and spatial research in the process of radical criticism and the rigorous production of ideas. Students and staff work in teams of up to ten in which they develop individual and group projects. These projects will be tested against the criticism of the group, but also against the knowledge and expertise of local protagonists. Each tutor-led unit investigates different aspects of the (emerging) spatial realities of the Gulf region, with a strong local and site(location)-specific focus.

Instead of presenting a set of self-referential objects, it addressed excessive urban development, pollution, unilateral politics, and the misuse, abuse and exhaustion of natural resources. It seems that, here, artistic and spatial practices manage and assume responsibility regarding that what politics is often incapable of: outright critique.

Region

In order to counter-balance the widespread (Western) media rhetorics of negativity and/or negation in regards to the Gulf region, the Winter School, as a transient but pro-active institution was introduced as a first-ever serious engagement with the spatial conditions of the Gulf’s labour situation and – more generally – the realities of immigrants throughout the entire social spectrum of the emirate.

Over the last decade, one could sense a particularly biased mode of reportage in which Western journalists, thinkers, and writers would continuously criticize the Gulf’’s ambitions, while continuously falling back into the same (old) modes of (Western-driven) critique. But what was and continuous to be often forgotten or not mentioned is that, as a city and mode of cultural production, the Gulf has been forced through modernity within only a few decades. This makes it an unprecedented place. What in Europe, or the ‘West’’ at large, took almost a century, happened and continues to happen here within a couple of years. This of course creates situations that are often difficult and challenging, and require an incredible amount of believe, ambition, and effort to deal with the setting up of a platform for civil society.

The scale and speed of urbanization, at times, even dwarfs similar projects in China and India. But what can we learn from the accelerated urbanism of the Gulf region? It seems increasingly urgent to understand the Gulf’s transformation in a different light. Not with the goggles of blacked-out pessimism but through a genuine attempt to recognize and utilize its dynamics. We need to take seriously what is too often being ridiculed. It is along those lines where one needs to understand that rather than delivering a mere critique, it is time to get engaged, to start a critical practice of involvement. It is only through direct involvement that we can interrogate spatial realities in a serious and lasting fashion: to be political outside the realm of politics.

School

When the Winter School was originally set up in Dubai, the driving force was clear: to establish a model for localized education, which would set itself clearly apart from the US-model of franchised campuses, one, in which major US universities started up major satellite campuses in the Middle East. This model was based on the post-9/11 reality that many Middle Easter families would no longer send their kids to the US, hence creating a serious financial lack within the administrative structures of the universities. As a result, some of those decided to bring the campuses where the money is. However, as they simply wanted to replicate the source campuses, also the outsourced campuses were and still are often staffed with professors from the US, who neither know anything about the region, nor build up any long-term local knowledge, as they tend to be on short-term rolling contracts. The dilemma is clear: the UFO has landed but does not really engage locally.

The Winter School instead aims to generate local knowledge with individuals and groups from the urban area, region and wider region that it situates itself in. Vis-à-vis the US model, the Winter School attempts to generate knowledge with locals for the locale toolboxes that will remain within the region and are specific to the context in which they are situated.

In 2010, the Winter School is moving from Dubai to Kuwait. In addition to the geographical move, the new setting and ambition in Kuwait is also different and more ambitious, as the model in Kuwait aims both for a longer-term engagement as well as a specific place in which the School will build up a small institution and platform for local exchange. This ambition regarding a visible and permanent local responsibility in terms of informal education further intends to generate a turf for the concept and reality of consequence when approaching a space for education, support, and discourse.

Kuwait is of particular interest: tongue-in-cheek, it could be described as the most socialist capitalist system that exists globally, with a democratically elected parliament, a benevolent ruler, free education, healthcare and housing. The political and cultural environment in Kuwait, other than in Dubai, is very liberal in regards to open discussion, with a tradition in platforms such as ‘Dewaniya’: a space typology for political exchange. An open society driven by an ‘overdemocratisation’, the country is known for its vibrant society, in which all parliamentarians think of themselves as the prime minister, and everyone else – in the most positive sense of civil society – owns a non-expert expertise. Compared to Dubai, Kuwait has also been highly urbanized since the 1930. This combination of liberalism and open politics on the one hand presents an interesting starting point, but when it comes to public discursive formats of education, Kuwait is only making use of classical and formalized formats, such as the centralized university. When it comes to education, especially from the point of view of spatial practices, urbanism, and discourse, there is very little attention being spent besides the formal and mostly outsourced planning of cities, as well as classical architecture, mainly operated from within the discipline of engineering. So far, there has neither been an attempt to come to terms with alternative urban development, the serious outlining of problematic realities, and/or transparency in planning processes. There is an increasing need for the stipulation, development and growth of a local expertise beyond classical Western notion of urbanism, one that uses the specificities of the local context in order to generate new types of spatial practice. As Kuwait is not at all as consumed and exhausted as Dubai, the serious mistakes of the emirate can still be avoided.

The Winter School, through its diverse practices and activities, aims to – in the long term – contribute to the UN’s State of the Arab Cities report, by addressing critical issues such as environmental education, urban research and the fostering of open conflictual exchange in the decision-making processes of urban, socio-political topics. At the moment, there is no official information on or indicators regarding planning, housing, and governance, which has led to a situation, which is precarious yet inventive and fosters productive informal processes.

Compared to the earlier Winter Schools, the one in Kuwait will consist of two major components:

(1) Annual gathering: workshop, seminars, and conference in January 2011;

(2) Permanent presence: a longer-term institutional affiliation through a newly built small platform, which will serve as the basis for an ongoing programme and local exchange throughout the year, curated by Markus Miessen in collaboration with Zahra Ali Baba

Please find out more about the ongoing results at: http://archive.hfg-karlsruhe.de

The applied research project and forthcoming publication “The Archive as a Productive Space of Conflict”, based at the University of Arts and Design Karlsruhe (HfG) in cooperation with Haute Ecole d’Art et de Design Geneva (HEAD), is dealing with archival practice and its spatial repercussions. Inquiring whether any accumulation and organization of knowledge is productive – to the effect that it generates a narrative and/or history – this project focuses specifically on archives becoming productive due to their spatial framework. Consequently, the project debates the conflicts that arise when the topological and architectural structure of archives overcome existing models of reservoirs and storage units.

What are the processes making archives productive? Conventional archives tend to define themselves through content-specific, quantitative accumulation of matter, subscribing to an existing, pre-established order. They rarely transform their structures. In contrast to such accumulative model of archival practice and preservation, the productive archive offers an open framework, which actively transforms itself and therefore allows for the constant production of new and surprising relationships.

 Attempting to illustrate how spaces of knowledge can be devised, developed, and designed, such archive reveals itself as a space of conflict, one in which documents and testimonies open up a stage for productive dispute and struggle. Over the past decade, conflict has been theorized not simply as that which is contained in space, but rather that which is productive of space itself. Often, it is the individual archivist, who presents the archive with the ability for those conflicts to be played out. In the case of the productive archive, the archivist is understood as an active sparring partner and enabler of new relationships rather than a collector or consensual mediator.

Exploring non-traditional archives, such as the wandering Hans-Ulrich Obrist archive, the Sitterwerk St. Gallen, and the by-products generated by Merve publishers, this inquiry attempts to offer new perspectives on archival practice. More specifically, the project interrogates whether archives necessarily need to be exposed to spatial permanence, and – if so – what design framework has to be applied in order for those components to be able to take on more than a singular form of existence. Likewise, what is the relevance of single-location versus nomadism, physical versus virtual access, questions of potential public(s), and means of production, to name a few?

Based on the central question regarding spatial methods in the light of presentability of content, the project inquires the integration of spatial design, content networks, curatorial concepts and organizational frameworks into a single, holistic approach. Hence, those disciplinary crossovers begin to inform a modus operandi towards an applied theory of the archive as a productive space of conflict.

Products

The project and seminar will culminate in a major publication on archival practice and its spatial becoming to be released in Fall 2011 (please see `About´), a series of decentralized and contextualized non-public conferences as well as an exhibition. In addition, the research group is working – as a test case – on the spatialization of the Merve Archive, which is based at the ZKM in Karlsruhe. This case study attempts to physically experiment with and demonstrate the findings of the work generated over the course of the research project.

Further collaborations

Seminar and workshops in collaboration with Armin Linke, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Wilfried Kuehn, Eyal Weizman, nOffice, Tom Lamberty, Yann Chateigné, Laurent Schmid, Margit Rosen, Anja Gossens, Peter Weibel, Uwe Hochmuth, and Petra Zimmermann;

The starting point for this project is an ongoing inquiry by the Berlin-based architecture practice nOffice (www.nOffice.eu), who have been working, since 2007, on and around questions of archives, libraries, and cultural centres, and – more specifically – how to make archives productive, how to integrate, cross-pollinate and bastardize a plethora of cultural programmes into a single spatial unity.

Travel and Research

The editorial team has and will continue to undertake visits to relevant spaces, institutions and models for productive interaction with knowledge as well as been meeting with significant protagonists, including (so far):

• Institut für Raumexperimente, Berlin, www.raumexperimente.net
• Merve Verlag, Berlin, www.zkm.de
• Merve Archiv, Karlsruhe, www.zkm.de
• Archive Kabinett, Berlin, www.archivekabinett.org
• Archive Journal, Berlin & Turin, www.archivejournal.org
• Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, www.hamburgerbahnhof.de
• Motto Distribution, Berlin, www.mottodistribution.com
• Aedes Network Campus, Berlin, www.aedes-network-campus.de
• 6. Berlin Biennale für zeitgenössische Kunst, www.berlinbiennale.de
• Hans Ulrich Obrist archive, Berlin, www.brutallyearlyclub.org
• Stählemühle, Eigeltingen-Münchhöf, www.staehlemuehle.de
• Alpenhof (Bibliothek Andreas Züst), Oberegg, www.alpenhofalpenhof.ch
• Sitterwerk Industrieareal, St. Gallen, www.sitterwerk.ch
• Harald Szeemann’s Fabbrica, Maggia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Szeemann
• Corner College, Zurich, www.corner-college.com
• Motto, Zurich, www.mottodistribution.com
• Decolonizing Architecture, Beit Sahour/ Bethlehem, www.decolonizing.ps
• ZKM, Zentrum für Kunst- und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe, www.zkm.de
• Kunstraum der Universität Lüneburg, www.uni-lueneburg.de/interarchiv/

Thanks

Tom Lamberty, Diethelm Stoller, Julia Moritz, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Tina Di Carlo, Alexis Zavialoff, Olafur Eliasson, Eric Ellingsen, Christina Werner, Magnus Nilsson, Ralf Pflugfelder, Chiara Figone, Armin Linke, Eyal Weizman, Urs Lehni, Zak Kyes, Anja Gossens, Petra Zimmermann, Christoph Keller, Juliette Duca, Yann Chateigné, Laurent Schmid, Wilfried Kuehn, Margit Rosen, Peter Weibel, Uwe Hochmuth, Peter Sloterdijk.

“Wish we were here”: Cedric Price – mental notes.
Architectural Association, London

04.03.11-31.04.11

This exhibition is in part a re-staging of a small exhibit made for the Venice Biennale 2010. It brings together three bodies of current research: a research project for publication entitled “Cedric Price – Complete Works” by Samantha Hardingham, Hans Ulrich Obrist’s Conversation Series archive and an interactive online project conceived at the department for Exhibition Design and Curatorial Practice at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe (HfG), supervised by Wilfried Kühn, Armin Linke and Markus Miessen. In addition, and newly commissioned for this exhibition, is the remaking of a range of furniture designed by Cedric Price for the Robert Fraser Gallery, Duke Street (1961-66), selected pieces of ephemera retrieved from the AA archive and edited by the Public Occasion Agency…and last but by no means least… the first public tasting of the CPSavoury, as devised by chef, Fergus Henderson.

The curators would like to thank the Public Occasion Agency and AA Exhibitions for inviting us to stage this exhibition.

Curatorial statements:

“Philosopher, sir ?”

“An observer of human nature, sir,” said Mr. Pickwick.

The Pickwick Papers or The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club by Charles Dickens* (1836-37).

Cedric Price (1934-2003) was an architect, thinker and above all an Englishman of extraordinary generosity towards his subject. He had an independence of mind the like of which can only come from a fondness for humans and a fascination for human nature. He worked tirelessly to invest his architecture with the ambition of – in the words of his uncle, Jack Price – “Dignifying life generally”. For Price the moral and ethical principles implied in any design speculation are privileged over and above variations on the arte-factual by-product. In this respect the role of the many rich collaborations over his lifetime, conversations and talks amongst audiences, engaging with the media as a means of initiating discussion, and the more personal dialogue presented in his notebooks were all critical in developing his design thinking on the themes of participation, anticipation, indeterminacy & delight. The films (courtesy of the AA Slide Library archive) and drawings from Cedric Price’s personal notebooks (permission courtesy of the Cedric Price Estate) that appear in the exhibition present Price doing what he did best over a period of 40 years: constantly challenge our understanding of what architecture might be, in discussions with students, colleagues, strangers and himself.

* a CP favourite – he held sixteen copies in his library at home, with one copy especially reserved for travelling.

Samantha Hardingham

The offices of Cedric Price Architects were founded in London in 1960. His major themes are those of time and movement. One of the central features of his thinking and his work – as manifest in the kinetic Snowdon Aviary at the London Zoo (1964), “which changes its form as the wind-load varies over time”- demonstrates Price’s opposition to permanence and his discussions on change. Price’s projects – over 250 of them in all – consistently push against the traditional physical limits of architectural space. His focus on time-based urban interventions, rather than on finished buildings, has earned him heroic status with seminal works including: the Fun Palace (1961-1974) – an interdisciplinary multi-purpose complex for theatre and for cultural projects; Potteries Thinkbelt (1964) – a university on the move, and Magnet (1999) – a series of short life structures, or urban triggers, to stimulate new patterns of urban movement in London. Francis Picabia claimed that our head is round so that thinking can change directions – thus, Price’s conviction that buildings should be flexible enough to allow the occupier to adapt the building to serve the needs of the moment reflects his own belief that time, alongside breadth, length and height – is the fourth dimension of design.

Hans Ulrich Obrist