Blog 02

Recently we have been working with our colleagues from ARCH+ to prepare for the first ARCH+ displays exhibition on the first weekend in May. Alongside the established presentation series ARCH+ features, this new exhibition format provides a new opportunity to present relevant thoughts and ideas in order to stimulate debate.

The format was launched with a public exhibition of Nieves Zines. Zines are small publications which are self-produced and self-published with a limited print run. For over ten years, the Nieves publishing house in Switzerland has brought out three zines designed by international artists each month, with a print run of 100 copies. The print run is created and reproduced in the copy shop using simple tools. Within these specifications, the invited designers are free to do whatever they want. The focus is on a DIY ethos and democratic access to art. These aspects are why the Nieves Zines were chosen to launch the exhibition series. Can these aspirations also be applied to architectural discourse?

At the preview on 30 April, the artist Stefan Marx spoke about his work and his collaboration with Nieves. As a teenager, he started to produce illustrations for his own clothing label and fanzines within the skater scene in the small town where he lived. He now works as an artist all over the world, documenting his many encounters in travel drawings for his series with Nieves. Over the course of the Gallery Weekend Berlin, many visitors were able to gain an insight into this unusual magazine format.

In the coming days, we will be switching our focus back to writing up our research on the architecture in Flanders. Conveying the individual projects by means of concise, succinct texts remains our priority. The next steps will involve continuing to work on the texts and photographic material as well as planning the publication.

At the same time, we are preparing for the next public event on 14 May. Ralph Eue and Florian Wüst will be presenting clips from their recent DVD “The Modern City”, all of which take a critical look at modern urban development and residential construction. They will then discuss the topic with Joachim Krausse, who made films about building houses for workers for the broadcasting service WDR in the seventies.

Anastasia Svirski, Anna Luise Schubert, Linda Lackner