Wasteland Twinning Ceremony between Sydney & Kuala Lumpur, Photography: Matthias Einhoff

Wasteland Twinning Network
An exploration of urban wastelands and networked transdisciplinary practice
 
Co-curated by Wasteland Twinning Berlin: Will Foster, Matthias Einhoff, Lars Hayer and Alex Head
 
21–23 September 2012
Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, Berlin

 
The Wasteland Twinning Network hijacks the concept of ‘City Twinning’ and applies it to urban wastelands in order to generate a network for parallel research and action. The Forum brings together the international project partners of the Wasteland Twinning Network from Europe, Asia and Australia. Hosted at the Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, the Forum will feature presentations, guest speakers, critical debates, Twinning Ceremonies, wasteland interventions and workshops.

Representatives from the various Network locations will present wasteland sites, the associated projects and the questions that they evoke. For example, Yogyakarta’s Bon Suwung Collective will address the social relations and property conflicts arising from the use of the land by a squatting community. Alongside the presentation of their ongoing programme of research, experimentation and public events, Wasteland Twinning Nottingham asks: what is the impact of artists focusing on undeveloped urban sites? Is ‘cultural capital’ created, and what are the implications of this? Guest speakers from parallel practices of urban geography, art, activism, and architecture, will highlight wastelands as spaces continually recreated by a complex web of social, natural, economic, and technological worlds. Following the scheduled events, registered participants are invited to join project partners and guest speakers for dinner.

Throughout the Forum, Wasteland Twinning Ceremonies will be conducted. In an act of ‘reverse postcolonial exoticism’, a Twinning Agreement between the Sydney and Kuala Lumpur wasteland sites will be forged at a critical moment in their parallel cycles of urban land use. Wasteland sites in Berlin and Amsterdam will celebrate their agreement to undertake a Non-Twinning Relationship. Europe and Asia will share centre stage in debates: from migration and subcultures in Guwahati and Berlin, to land rights and ecology in Yogyakarta and Nottingham. A resident laboratory will analyse objects and samples of physical material gathered from wasteland sites across the Network.

The Forum will be the launch of Recreation Ground: a trilateral collaborative project between the Network partners in Berlin, Nottingham and Amsterdam.

Wasteland Twinning Network Co-directors: Matthias Einhoff, Will Foster, Lars Hayer, Alex Head and Paulina Olszewska.

From the Network: Rebecca Beinart, David Bell, Mathew Trivett (Wasteland Twinning Nottingham UK), Sonal Jain (Desire Machine Collective IN), Lena Obergfell (Sydney AU), Ansgar Reul (W139 NL), Ferdiansyah Thajib (KUNCI Cultural Studies Center ID), Saubin Yap (Rumah Air Panas Art Society MY).

Guest speakers: Tore Dobberstein (Complizen DE), Sofia Donna (GR), Mathew Gandy (UK), Annette Maechtel (DE), Stef Richter and Romy Richter (Burghard DE), Skulpturenpark Berlin_Zentrum (DE), Jan van Duppen (NL).

Supported by:

Creative Encounters (Arts Network Asia), The European Cultural Foundation and Arts Council England.

Project website http://wasteland-twinning.net/forum/

Presentations at ZKU, Photography: Robyn Taylor

Alex Head, Chair Person on Behalf of the Wasteland Twinning Network leads an audience to the Twinning Ceremony between Nottingham, UK and Yogyakarta, Indonesia. 

Twinning Ceremony between Nottingham, UK and Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Forum space at ZKU, Photography: Robyn Taylor

Objective Dialogues, The Anxious Prop, Photography: Robyn Taylor 

Objective Dialogues Y Table,The Anxious Prop, Photography: Robyn Taylor 

Objective Dialogues Y Table,The Anxious Prop, Photography: Robyn Taylor

Communal meal with Forum guests at ZKU, Photography: Robyn Taylor