2014 A new pavilion for Marabouparken

 

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Uppehåll, Marabouparken Konsthall, 2014;  The mutifunctional pavillion to the right, is my contribution to the park.

 

 

A new pavilion for Marabouparken
As a part of the outdoor exhibition Uppehåll / Stay, at Marabouparken Konsthall in 2014, I was asked to elaborate a small semi-permanent pavilion, to be added to a park made by the landscape architect Johan Hermelin, in 1955.
In the park there is an existing pavilion, made by the architect Arthur von Schmallensee, which is placed right by a small pond in the centre of the park. For the architects,  pavilion and pond had an significant role to play as a place of leisure and playground for the children of the staff –  a radical idea at the time, and a key thought of J Hermelins concept for the park in 1937.
I added a pavillion that was to behave and to be understood as an “annex” to the larger cultural institutions in the city of Sundbyberg – among them the library and the art museum.

 

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The new pavilion was  to be used as a new kind of changeable public space with the aim to address and activate the public in the park. In close collaboration with the Danish architect Marie Cathrine Trabut Jørgensen, I elaborated a pavilion wich would have multiple parallel identities – a kiosque, an exhibition space, a resting place, a mini outdoor cinema,  a tiny stage or a reading room or a space for learning or for mediation.
All of this with departure in a crude, low mechanic flexible architecture- a nine-cornered shape that meets a square one.

 

 

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All doors can open, be slid to the side or be hooked off their hinges and used as tables. The windows are made from many-coloured glass. They can be opened, or used as different zones of display or information. In this way  the pavillion can offer to a passer-by a first encounter with visual art, music and litterature.
The light behind the coloured glass in the windows is lit during evening hours, turning the pavilion into a light house, which marks a common, we  almost no longer register that we are in fact, are members of.

 

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During the exhibition an audioguide was organized.
Below, (and unfortunately only in Swedish) is the text I read in this audio guide. 
“Om du tittar bort från stigen, upp mot parkens andra ända, ser du en hög, gul byggnad. En gång var den en del av chokladfabriken. I dag ligger den lite dold bakom växtlighet, och har inte något med choklad att göra. Men om du skulle vandra dit upp, skulle du få syn på det man kanske kunde kalla parkens andra halva: En mycket stor matsal som alla använde, oavsett om man var chef eller medarbetare.
Matsalen hjälper mig att förstå, varför det här parkrummet verkar ha en slags underliggande riktning – allt vänder sig inåt och uppåt, mot den gula byggnaden. Här låg huvudingången till parken. I matsalen är det högt i tak. På ena väggen, finns en mycket stor muralmålning. De jättestora fönstren lyfter in kaskader av ljus. Däruppifrån hade man nog en lika härlig utsikt över park, damm och paviljong.
 Men det var inte arkitektens egentliga avsikt med parken. Parken är snarare född som en bild. Den byggdes, användes och uppfattades som en social yta och andrum för fabrikens medarbetare. Allmänheten fick också vistas i parken, men bara på helgerna. En matsal utan hierarki, och en fabrikspark för arbetarna. Det var ovanliga tankar den gången.
Ser du den paviljongen, som ligger precis vid den lilla dammen? Den är ett exempel på denna ovanliga idé. Tanken var att byggnad och damm skulle bilda en romantisk figur tillsammans, där, längst nere i parkens gröna fond. Men samtidigt skulle den också kunna av barn till chokladfabrikens anställda, som en slags parklek.
Jag vet inte om du känner till, vad en parklek var? Det var en bemannad lekplats, oftast i nya bostadsområden från 60 – 90-talet i Sverige. Mestadels var det bara en liten och oansenlig byggnad, två medarbetare och en pytteliten summa pengar. Men man höll alltid dörrarna öppna, för spontana besök. Därför var det alltid något på gång i en parklek. Man bakade, fixade, planterade eller lekte lekar – och alla var välkomna oavsett ålder och antal. Institutions viktigaste roll var att vara en ren anledning för folk att råka hamna i samtal med varandra. En parklek ville vara beröringsyta, ville upprätthålla en öppenhet mellan människorna.
Mitt bidrag bygger vidare på arkitektens arbete. Jag placerar ut ytterligare en paviljong. Och hoppas att den, bara genom att den ligger just där den ligger, så att säga kan skruva parkens struktur lite grann i sidled. Att två små hus, bättre en ett, kan bilda en slags port som öppnar parken ut mot Bällstastråket, mot den nya staden bakom. Att två små paviljonger tillsammans kan göra gräsmattan mellan sig och konsthallen, till ett nytt mitt i parken. Och att två paviljonger tillsmmans kan tillfoga ny beröringspunkt till stadsdelen.
Men hur bakar man då en beröringspunkt, nu om stunder? Ja, den skall alltså fortfarande ge dig en anledning att bara stanna till en liten stund. Därför måste själva byggnaden vara liten och smidig, för att lätt kunna byta skepnad då och då. Den skall kunna vara rum för många olika aktiviteter, så att du aldig vet, vad som komma skall. Därför har den inre glas-strukturen har fått luckor som kan öppnas. Då kan man till exempel sälja glass där innifrån. Själva glaskroppen har också hyllor. Då kan den vara ett utställningsfönster för konstifika pryttlar och pinaler som någon har gjort. Bakom vissa luckor finns en låda med böcker, från biblioteket. Alla kan låna med sig en bok hem.
Ett bord står på den lilla, lilla verandan. Det kan roteras. Längst in står ett skåp, med tre dörrar. Man kan använda skåpet för att förvara redskap. Skåpsdörrarna kan tas av och bli till en bokdisk, utställningsplats eller ett arbetsbord. Då blir verandan ibland ett lärorum, utomhus. Eller en butik, en scen eller till och med en pytteliten utomhusbiograf. Men samtidigt kan den bara vara en rofylld mötesplats för ett förälskat par, under en solnedgång. Kanske ristar de in sina lyckliga namn i en av skåpsdörrarna. Två gamla, som söker skydd för ett plötsligt regn en annan dag, kan få syn på namnen och bli påminda om hur det kändes, att vara så där galen av glädje.
Sist men inte minst skall hela byggnaden kunna förvandla sig, om natten. Tak och inre glaskropp är niokantigt. Glaset i den inre strukturen är färgat i olika färger. Om ljuset tänds inne i glaskroppen kommer hela paviljongen att upplevas som till en lite speciell lykta.”

 

 

 

 

2008-2011 Open Plan – A New Commons for Trekroner

 

A new commons in Trekroner

In 2011, a new temporary public space was inaugurated on a future building-site of Trekroner, a new urban area of Roskilde in Denmark.

It was the result of a multilayered public dialogue proces, performed within an art project but defined, built and administrated by locals. It was organized to be many things and serve many  purposes by flexing its identity between being bmx-track, physical excercise area, place for  birdwatching, concerts space, site for evening fire,  an outdoor cinema stage or outdoor party place.  Thus, it propoed a vague architecture as public domain– a crossbreed between different purposes, identities and partnerships.

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Two processes of local dialogue led to the realisation of this new commons. Both were realised as a part of my eleven year long art project entitled Trekroner Art Plan Project, a commission by Roskilde City.  But the commons is indeed the result of a amazing collaboration between me, Marianne Levinsen, Jøren Carlo Larsen, Karen Atwell from Roskilde municipality, with journalist and resident Jakob Fälling, Trekronerrådet and a large group of new residents of the urban area who subsequently bioth built and administrated the commons .

Threee towers in steel and acrylic glass were added by me, and built by S Asbjørn Albertsen. This production was funded by the National Danish Foundation of Art In Public Space in 2010.

Born as a temporary structure, this site was demounted in 2018. The commons as it stood until 2018, a central self governed zone between the rational suburban settlements.

Photo: Cai Ulrich von Platen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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During a weekend in 2008, I initiated OPEN PLAN – collective imagining /Åben Plan – Drømmeværksted.

Participating residents of a new urban area were invited to define the physical program around a new lake, central to the master plan of the new urban development.  I posed a question: What would like to share, or do together? What do you wish to share with each other?

Residents responded by producing classical imagery of how the lake area could be organised. Weeks later, their proposals were laid forward for a local public voting prcedure and a few favorites were identified.  These were inserted by me into a new map of the area, elaborated in collaboration with landscape architect Marianne Levinsen . In this map, the chosen proposals were placed strategically, as reasons for  principal alterations of the actual master plan for the entire new urban area.

The new plan was subsequently published in a large poster, distributed as an addition to the local paper, and  subsequently put forward for approval to the municipality of Roskilde. It was approved in late 2010, and the lake area was re-organized in accordance to this plan.

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Excerpt from the poster, added as an insert to the local paper in 2008.  Graphic design Åse Eg and text by Jakob Fälling.

 

The second public dialogue was initiated by the participants, in relation to the publication of this counterplan.This publication was not edited by me. It was co-edited by residents and the artist/graphic designer Åse Eg and during their work, the roles of artist and participants changed:

Participants enquired if they could shape the poster, as an invitation for all residents to participate in a public walk within the area? And if they could perform this walk as an old fashioned treasure hunt? I naturally responded positively. But what I did not know, was that the treasurehunt partly was a cover-up for the “pirate-planting” of 80 trees on places, where residents felt trees were missing.

This action once completed, residents took yet another initiative:  Not wanting to wait for the city to arrange their public shared platform for them, the group of participating residents proposed  to go out and physically claim the land they needed to build a joint platform. Their chosen format for a collective platform was a new BMX track. They wished to build it themselves and insisted on sqwuatting the most expensive building lot within the new urban area – as a way of expressing how the planning was in error. This particular lot of land ought to belong to all, and become an open park.

I supported and co-facilitated their action and plan. The first act of collectively terriotializing the land was performed in 2009 .

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On behalf of the residents I  then negotiated their access to their choice of place, with Roskilde City. I also contributed by expanding the congregation of participants, thus expanding  their concept that the track. It would subsequently be perceived not only as a track, but as a flexible multipurpose structure.

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The group of participants obtained a temporary permission to mount the track in 2010. It was collectively built by residents themselves – with heavy machines and during a very long hot summer. To this track, I added a structure: A small circle of red tennis gravel, placed in one of the folds of the track. To it, I added three high towers made of galvanized steel and transparent coloured acrylic glass. I also added  electricity, to open for the towers to act lanterns in the night.

Additions were also made by other players: The local housing association, Trekronerrådet added a fireplace, a stage and two large containers to the site, making it possible for the locals to use the area for events and parties. Someone else brought loads of low seats, found at a recycling site and to be used around a fireplace. Yet someone else brought a stove to make pancakes – etc. etc With these additions, the track grew into a glitch in the relatively fixed logic of the rational function, at play in the surrounding suburban settlements.

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The new commons was organized as home track for a local BMX–association, but also as a point of departure for a free running path around the entity of the lake area, a place for bird watching, for social gatherings around the fire, for flee markets, hang out parties, music evenings, exercise field for elderly and playground for small children etc. etc.

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Making Trekroner New Commons in collaboration with the locals, made me aware of how rarely the experiences and the ownership brought in by new residents into a new urban area – at all is considered important in planning.

On the contrary, it seems that planning builds on a standardized image of the residents as unified customers, in order to simplify budget for and production of buildings and spaces.

But if time and space was reserved from the start of an urban development, if the aim was not to entirely define and finish all aspects and all areas of the new urban area – the skills of the new residents in the planning of their area perhaps could elaborate quite different forms of public space. Thereby giving to a new urban area, what contemporary planning not seems to be able to produce – a true sense of place.

 

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In 2018 the twoers and the self goverened place was demounted – but not closed. It was carefully moved into other locations, maintaining this surface of contact between the residents. The towers, however, were demolished in accordance with their intent, to be temporary indicators of an open possibility.

 

2004 A new playground for Ballerup

 
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A public commission from  Ballerup city; 

Attached to the school of Østerhøj in Ballerup, (DK), there is a large solitary playground., which I was invited to reorganize in accordance with the ideas of children of the area. The new playground, developped through a listening proces in several stages,  is based on the logic of a specific  childrens game.

In this game – ”The Earth is Poisonned” you are chased by someone else, but can not touch the ground while escaping. This gave  the basic organisational principles for the new playground. (For full info, please scroll down.)

Realised in 2004 in collaboration with Jonas M Schul from Schul& co, and Danske Legepladser for Ballerup Kunstråd.

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In Østerhøj there is a train station and a bus station. But the public domain is reduced to communal roads, walking paths and a local school. All buildings, apart from social housing estates, are private. The play-ground, linked to the school, is located right by an open non-built green area. If organized with this intention, the playground and schoolyard could actually reinstate into the suburban area, what is left out in the initial planning – a common heterotopic ground.

The invitation to me grew out of an incident two years earlier. A group of children from the school had sent a letter to the editor of the local paper. They complained that the playground was already run down and dangerous. The City Council responded by granting them the symbolic sum of 2000 kroners. A group of staff from the municipality heard about this, and were annoyed by the lack of respect. They re-applied for, and obtained funding of a new playground, designed in accordance with the wishes of the children.

I initiated a mapping of criteria for good play. Ninety children were asked to show me how their dream playground would look like. We used sand boxes, scaled as their playground. Some weeks later, I revisited and video-filmed all participating children in groups of 2-4 children at a time.  I asked them to further elaborate the thoughts behind their particular proposals. From their responses I gathered list of criteria for a “good playground”.

I later re-presented this list to yet other groups of children from the neighbourhood with whom additional criteria’s were developed.

Jonas Schül and myself finally faithfully translated the list and the models, exhibited by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Køge in 2004, to a model of a new playground and then to a special version of a tendering material. Jonas Schül consequently performed the actual tendering rounds with children participating as full members of a selection committee.

The very organization of the playground contests and contradicts a traditional playground layout, normally based upon a zone-concept similar to that of the planning of new urban areas. In this playground you do not find separate stations for climbing and sliding, for swinging and for digging. Instead a game, called “Earth is poisoned” is the basic concept.

In this game, one is chased by someone else, but forbidden to touch the ground while chasing /escaping. This concept gave three basic organisational principles for the realised playground;

Firstly, one must be able to pass along all the different passages and paths all over the playground, without ever having to touch the ground.

Secondly, all paths must constantly divide in two. The person chasing, must never be able to tell which path you choose. All physical structures are for this reason also perforated, in all sorts of ways, in order for a child’s body to be able quickly to slip through.

Thirdly all in the playground is both integrated, and shaped in such a way, that it stays impossible to translate what they are, into verbal tongue. This secures an on-going re-definition, -which, according to the participating children – is the essence, a temporary, imaginative play. You can always slip out of a dead end, by simply changing the names for all things.

The highest wish of the children however, was in fact that grown-ups also would use the playground for Sunday morning leisure, local parties and picnics.

In their minds, a division of spaces between the generations – is a purely stupid idea. For them, a playground of course is not a playground. It is a space for another kind of time and being.  For this reason, all what can be imagined as a castle, bench or ramp for skating, is also shaped so it as well can be perceived just as a nice place to sit for a while, and read your paper in the sun.

 

 

 

2010 – 2014 PARK LEK

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PARK LEK was an utopian art project as well as a concrete intervention into an urban planning process, performed between 2010 – 2014 and responding to an invitation from Marabouparken Konsthall in Sundbyberg,  to create a project with park /  park play as its inspiration and point of departure.

Through the use of durational strategies and strategies of play, I gathered a broad range of different people and raised their awarness about a  a proposed district plan for  densification of  two urban areas, Hallonbergen and Ör in Sundbyberg, Sweden.

The art project appeared as a parallell public hearing procedure, and elaborated a different plan in collaboration with particpants. This plan was presented at the public gallery and to the municipality. This alternative plan was approved by the municipality two years later. This meant that the plan of the group of six major developpers in Sweden, was rejected.

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The project was a part of Marabouparken Lab and was performed in collaboration with Marie Cathrine Trabut Jørgensen and Peter Schultz Jørgensen,both from Denmark,  with financial support from Statens Konstråd and Samverkansprojektet, as well as from Sundbyberg stad. The city architect Karin Milles, and planners Åsa Steeen, Helena Dunberg and Lisa Brattström  were collaborators in the realisation.

Photo; PARK LEK

( For a 20 min video /presentation I made at Samtidskonstdagarna in Malmö in 2015, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0f8efn0aIYSweden : .)

 

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With PARK LEK, I responded to an invitation from Marabouparken Konsthall in Sundbyberg, Sweden, to create a project using park, and in particular park play (ground) as my inspiration and point of departure. The project was initiated as a contribution for the 2010 inaugural exhibition of the public gallery.

In an initial phase of my project PARK LEK (PARK PLAY), I brought together civil servants and politicians from the municipality of Sundbyberg in the art gallery, to reflect on how the city’s parks could function as contact areas for the citizens. ( See above) The discussions here also came to touch on a planned densification of the districts of Hallonbergen and Ör, as concrete examples of how urban development in Sundbyberg slowly is encroaching on parks and green areas.

A full year later, the PARK LEK project entered its second phase. I decided to intervene into this densification, by appearing as an alternative to the planned public consultation procedure. With the support of the Swedish National Council of Art, the municipality of Sundbyberg had accepted my invitation to chart thoughts, ideas and structures, as perceived by the residents and by others with relations to their areas today. My question to each was, how the urban areas look, when seen from their window?

This initated a pure walk and talk phase:  I visited individual or groups of locals, administrators, teachers and other professionals with a relation to the two urban areas. Each dialogue was documented on video, and by the end of March 2012; over 43 films were placed on you tube. Above: Ingrid in her window facing the area for densification, in 2010. ( see parklek.com)

These videos opened for an intense local debate about the future of the areas. I received  requests of meetings between all participants, to collectively read and re-define the proposed plan.

The discussions were realised as two all-weekend workshops, and led to the elaboration of a different version of a district plan for the future densification.

The PARK LEK-project was presented at a group-exhibition entitled Hembyg(g)d, at Marabouparken in 2012. My fellow artists in the exhibition were Pawel Althamer, Catti Brandelius, Anna Högberg & Johan Tirén, Kateřina Šedá, Anna Witt.

 

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 Above: PARK LEK dialogues performed at Hembyg(g)d,  Marabouparken,  2012.

A third and final part of the art project, PARK LEK PARLIAMENT, was realised in collaboration with the City of Sundbyberg, and materialized in an open corner space in Hallonbergen Shopping Centre.

I appropriated this corner by painting it brightly pink. Here, during 18 months, I moderated negotiations, discussions and workshops in full view amid the shopping centre’s other visitors. The aim was to concretize the earlier versions of our proposal, and work out more concrete solutions for the concerns formulated in the initial video films.

In May 2014, the municipal government in Sundbyberg took the principal decision to implement our counter-plan, and to let the new working methods of the PARK LEK project be used in the future planning work within the urban development. In relation to this event, a final and cohesive exhibition of the entity of the project was performed in the shopping mall of Hallonbergen.

From 2015 and on, the municipality is working on the realisation of the plan, and already the alternative areas for new settlements have been implemented, as well as the realisation of the new community house Toppstugan, the new youth centre and the realisation of the so called Green Cross – two urban parks in the area.

PARK LEK is thus both a utopian art project as well as a concrete intervention in the urban planning process.

 

 

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Above: The video films with particpants displayed in the final exhibition of the project, in the shopping mall of Hallonbergen 2014.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second phase of PARK LEK was a walk and talk process, intiated through this question.  I visited individual or groups of locals, administrators, guards, teachers, professionals with a relation to the two urban areas . Each dialogue was documented on video.  In all  43 films were placed on you tube by the end of May 2012.

The videos opened for a series of meeting between all particpants. The goal was to assemble their local perspectives on the council’s plans for Hallonbergen and Ör, and thereby supplement and perhaps amend the densification proposal of December 2011. The discussions led to the elaboration of a counterversion of a district plan for the future.
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til arkitekten Peter
A third and final part, PARK LEK PARLIAMENT, realised in collaboration with the City of Sundbyberg, materialized in a bright pink open space in Hallonbergen Shopping Centre, where negociations, discussions and workshops were conducted in an appropriated corner of the centre, in full view amid the shopping centre’s other visitors. The aim was to concretize the earlier proposals and work out solutions for the concerns formulated in the intial videofilms.

At the end of the project, in May 2014, the municipal government in Sundbyberg took the principal decision to implement the counter-plan  of the project, and to let the new working methods of the PARK LEK project affect the future planning work with the urban development. PARK LEK is thus a utopian art project as well as a concrete intervention in the urban planning process.

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Above: The wall in the Pink Room was the logbook of the project.

 

Below: Among the concrete results of the project was a the elaboration of a concrete proposal for a new communal house in the local park – Toppstugan.  Below second: This community house  was realised by the municipality in Nov 2015. See; http://www.parklek.com

 

PLP Toppstugans princip model

 

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2003 The Dog Owners Territory

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This was a temporary sculptural addition to the public park of Søndermarken by Frederiksberg Castle, performed in relation to LAYER 4, a summer   outdoor sculpture exhibition curated by Tina Maria Nielsen and Rikke Ravn in 2003.
I added a wooden bench, and a double display case for photos and information. I hoped it was to be understood and used as a tool for dogwalkers in the park, and as such also be understood as a parallell to areas for children or disabled in a public park.
Photo Iben Kaufmann.

 

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The park of Søndermarken in Copenhagen, is one of the few parks allowing dogs to run free, in certain designated areas. The dog walkers are not only regular visitors. They actually come and go at the same hours, every day. Despite this strong presence as a group, no facilities or even simply proper benches in the “dog-zones” were offered them. There were however playgrounds for children, parts of the park arranged for public concerts and lanes prepared for strolling and running. But no facilities for sitting down when watching your dog run free. The dogwalkers were, and still in fact are not perceived as a contribution to this park, by the castle administration.
From sheer lack of alternatives, the dogwalkers therfore had established an informal meeting point along a part of the path closest to the big lawn. Here they stood in clusters, with their dogs running around them. But this very path was the most direct path across the park for parents walking their small children to the playground further up the hill. The children often felt scared of the fast running dogs. I actually knew this from walking there with my own daughter. She had been so scared of those dogs her whole life. Frequent and open tensions between the two groups was therefore part of the every day in this part of the park.
I understood the missing benches as an indirect effort from the park administrators to restrict these conflicts, by making it less attractive to walk your dog in the park. I proposed another gaze at their presence in the park –   to regard the social network of the dogowners as an addition to the park, on a par with ‘the mates down at the marina’ or ‘the lads on the football field’ who in an indirect way monitors the life of the park, and are ready to assist any one who woud need it. For this reason, I added a proper home territory for them within the designted “dog zone”.
It was a temporary bench , shaped as a classic figure of parc architecture – the spiral, and foormed as a practical place for dogwalkers to sit and enjoy the sun while watching their dogs. The shape in itself also accommodates dialogues between strangers. The spiral shape also offers a semi-protected centre for children and adults who actually would like to look at the free play of the dogs, without risking a collision.
Two notice boards were added to the bench. In these boards, I placed a series of portraits of dogs and their owners taken during three weeks of May in 2003. But the boards also were open for the dogwalkers themselves to add their material. Apart from a pure practical function of sending messages from one dogowner to another, the notice boards also served as a marker of the authorised space for the airing of dogs.

 

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The bench was promptly inhabited by the dog walkers. They initiated new social activities such as public morning coffee, joint dog training and walking each others dogs. The notice boards were crucial to this new interaction.
By the end of the exhibition,  the dog walkers unexpectedly wrote to the park authorities, enquering to keep the bench permanently. It was allowed to remain until it disintegrated, which occured in December 2003.
Above, a photo included in that letter, sent to me with a copy of their letter .

 

2003 – 2011 The Memory Box Project

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Model of the proposed building for a digital archive of local memories of the new urban area.

 

The Memory Box Project 

The Memory Box  is an integrated part of my Trekroner Art Plan Project from 2001-2011.

It consists of a 1:1 collection of images, intended for a local self-governed digital museum in relation to new urban areas.  The collection consists of several undreds of images of all kinds – plans, budgets, texts, photos both historical recordings of the former area and later photos from the new urban area.

Above is the model of the physical museum I hoped to build in the new area. This museum is not yet realized. But the collection was shown at Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde, in 2003 with an exhibition entitled Overblik – kunsten og byen der endnu ikke er.

In 2011 I donated this collection to the local residents cultural association – Trekronerrådet.

 

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Photos: Anders Sune Berg, Torben Eskerod and Kerstin Bergendal 2001 – 2011.

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I wrote the Trekroner Art Plan in 2001, as a response to a brief from the Danish National Arts Foundation and Roskilde Municipality. In the original brief, the commissioners asked for how contemporary artists could operate within the highly determined planning process?  The response was delivered in 2001, and was subsequently realized in major parts through the Trekroner Art Plan Project, which I curated from 2002 – 2011.

The aim of my response and of The Trekroner Art Plan Project, was to facilitate critical discussion between different professions and create possibilities for inserting the unplanned within contemporary urban planning processes, “allowing artistic interventions to be realised within a prescribed environment which simultaneously critiqued the planning process and giving local residents a chance to contribute to their built surroundings”. (From Claire Doherty and Paul O’Neill (ed.) Locating the Producers: Durational Approaches to Public Art, 2011)

As for The Memory Box Project, the physical form I originally imagined was a two tall cylinder-shaped architecture with planted deeply directly into one of the sloping hills of the new urban area.

The roof and veranda formed an informal balcony structure, serving as a viewpoint over the physical area on the outside. The two cylinders were to be approximately 4 meters in diameter, one of which had windows to let in daylight, and were intended for various local exhibitions. The other was to be dark and would contain a digital archive of memories and only furnished with large electronic screens on the walls and on the floor. A visitor would trigger projections of all kinds of stored memories, but in a random combination; Factual information, anecdotes, reproductions of earlier municipal visions, documentation of the visiting artists’ contributions to the area and photos from social gatherings  – all mixed in irregular combinations.

The essence of the Memory Box is the conscious use of chance to describe the history of an urban area – that precisely lacks a proper history .The archive is to continuously to be expanded through my own documentation, and through all kinds of documents from local events, details of every day life and of same, etc etc.

The organisation and administration of the Memory Box was to be done jointly by local homeowners, Roskilde Museum and Roskilde University. All of them could contribute to the collection and to a broad spectrum of exhibitions in the little pavilion.

In order to mount an image of what the Memory Box Archive might contain, I presented in 2003  a wide spectrum of “memories from a city that not yet exist” in the exhibition OVERBLIK – Kunsten og den ny by at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde in 2003.

Below some few examples of images within the collection of the Memory box Project: An interior from a one family home in 2003, a bus tour with myself as a guide 2004, the interior of the new student apartmenets in 2002, a table with all possible documents and plans regarding the area from 1970 until 2003, and finally documentation of my soup debate with municipal planners in 2002.