Circling the Square

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A visit, recounted

21st April 2021

the pigeon’s cüüüs curdle in my ear

their wings flap the warm, too warm, musty-aroma of the space in my direction

and it fills my mouth

                       

I SIT on a bench and conduct a little audit of the space’s usages

MAN SORTS ‘VIDEO CARDS’  (looks like football or pokemon cards but he tells me when i ask that they are, ‘video cards’)

MAN WATCHES VIDEO ON SMARTPHONE, HEADPHONES IN, KNEES SPREAD, PHONE BETWEEN KNEES, HUNCHED IN (but not quite falling in) WITH INTENT

MAN EATS SANDWICH THEN SITS FOR HOURS IN WHAT COULD BE DESCRIBED AS CONTEMPLATION: HIS EYES WASH OVER THE BUILDINGS, THE LINES, CURVATURES OF THE BUILDING. DOES HE TAKE PLEASURE FROM THIS?

                    Throughout the day i love to spot micro twinning efforts in and around the square-not-square: A perfectly placed farm foods, in sight from the square, waves the german flag in red-yellow-black, thank you very much an ornate doomed corner building over looking the square takes me to Bavaria. Munich perhaps. The arriva bus company’s internet, DB sponsored (the one perhaps deliberate effort in my noticings, a corporate result of the twinning town initiative), that doesn't let me connect as the bus moves ON The B1 bus stop sign that looks uncannily like the U5 line Old-kent-road-brown Blocky-font Neglected feel. Berlin, not Osnabrück, but I’ll take it. Ryan joins in my game when we buy our picnic later in the day from germany’s
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Categories: Katy Hawkins, Uncategorised
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My research question: What would it look like to design in and for friendship?

21st April 2021
      To design in friendship: to occupy as planner/designer the position of friend, of ally, supporter, to the publics/communities you design with and for. To design for friendship: to design a space that enables the development of new, and maintaining of existing friendships (with others) and also with ones self: self friendship, self care.   For the duration of my residency I will be exploring the question of what it would look like to design in and for Friendship, taking leave from the proposed renaming of Osnabrueck Square to Friendship square.
It is a question I am really excited about,
especially around the idea of designing in friendship*, an idea introduced to me through the work of Celine Condorelli, via my good friend.
To design in friendship feels like a radical break from the 'co-' continuum we have been on for awhile now - co-design, production, creation** - with the relationship between the 'co-'s involved never clear, for better or for worse.
To be a friend: an ally, supporter, to take (to share?) responsibility, this is clear.
Less room for confusion, for co-option - as 'co-' has found itself subject to.
It feels to me like entering into a completely new frame.
Critically interrogating participatory planning processes, wanting to understand how you could better on them and how you might employ creative practice to open up discussions, is where I started my work and is a place I am grateful to be returning to.
If you would like to join me on my research journey please get
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Categories: Katy Hawkins
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Hardscape

29th March 2021
So, I begin my residency from just down the road in Nottingham. The pandemic has left me unable to visit Derby – which is obviously an interesting challenge for a site-specific project. So, I have no choice than to leap-frog into the city through all available portals. I’m resigned to the clunky websites of local history enthusiasts, maps provided by the all-seeing eye of Google and good old fashioned human conversation - albeit through the Zoomiverse. Since the dawn of land ownership in Britain, common land has been a contentious topic.  This last year public land and property has been a huge part of the post-pandemic zeitgeist – which comes as no surprise. Who gets to use certain spaces? What can and can’t you do in them? I applied for this opportunity with the word ‘Psychogeography’ plastered all over my application. So, in order for you to follow my train of thought – I’ll start there. What is psychogeography? This is the clear part, simply put it’s the way a place can influence one’s psyche. It does what it says on the etymological tin. Psychogeography was originally developed in the early 1950s. A gang of pan-European mavericks who would later be known as 'The Situationists' conjured up the field. With a penchant for red wine drinking and Marxist thinking, these flaneurs produced a number of books, exercises and visual art forms used to highlight the role of the built environment in our minds. As with the situationists and Marxist thinkers of their time, modern
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Categories: Ryan Heath, Uncategorised, Visions of an Unmade City
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