Contour 9 Biennale Mechelen
Marking Feeling was a series of walks developed and conducted throughout the group project of the RCA’s MRes Architecture cohort of 2018/19. This is part one. See part two about our London Event here.
The MRes Architecture group research project began with the aim of deconstructing the latest version of the Mayor of London’s London Plan by replacing a language of ‘growth’ with a language of ‘care’. After initial research and fieldwork, we, the MRes students of 2019/20, developed a workshop methodology to engage with the urban environment from a human scale and awareness of feeling and sensation, to render accessible through our own experiences the complexity in languages of planning and architecture. The aim was to reimagine a discourse of planning and care through a collective act of marking, –be that on paper, memory, or asphalt. Thinking about how we feel in urban space, our key question became:
How can intimate sensations, emotions and feelings come into discourses around planning for urban futures?
After a couple of pilot versions in London, we put this method into practice by conducting a walk for the Full Moon Phase of the Contour 9 Biennial in Mechelen, Belgium the 17–19 May 2019, curated by Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, as part of the Transnational Alliance: We Cannot Work Like This: Decolonial Practices and Degrowth.
Marking Feeling
Inspired by workshops with urban planner and researcher Alpa Depani, artist Betsy Dadd, dance artist Katye Coe and visual artist Keira Greene, as well as an artist and curator Kenzie Larsen, we decided to bring our group research in the field. Marking Feeling continued the questions of care in our research, investigating how the city is caring through a series of activities in which we aimed to translate feelings and experience as a form of knowledge for planning and/or designing the built environment. We explored the concepts of caring and feeling in the built environment before engaging in a collective act of marking and walking in the space we’re experiencing. Marking in space these forms of care became a way of mapping in real scale by drawing, thinking, and participating.
Closure
To bring every participant in the space of the market square in Mechelen, Belgium, on the 18th of May 2019, we asked the participants to consciously make one step closer to the centre of the group. Followed by another one. This went on as long as no one could take a step closer anymore. One of us drew a line around the group that would not only tie the group together but also be a manifestation in the of the existence of the group as such. To welcome everyone to the workshop participants received a moon sticker from us.
We then asked the participants to turn around facing the outside of the circle. Participants were asked to notice who was inside and outside of the circle and how they felt in regards to inclusion and exclusion. Whenever they felt ready participants were asked to step outside the circle to discover the next excersises to come in the workshop. We recorded the thoughts we shared in the centre of the circle when participants were asked to close their eyes and speak out loud keywords that came to their mind.
To get to the next space we walked in one line with all 20 participants. Not only to attract interest but also to have performed as a group and begin to explore the walk in a fun and engaging way.
Marking Feeling
Arriving in IJzerenleen all participants were asked to find a spot where they felt comfortable. Staying still for a few minutes in the spot they chose, they would draw a circle around them again; but this time only around them individually. In or around this circle participants articulated their thoughts and feelings about this space, with words or drawings.
After ten minutes of observing the space and marking their feelings in the space participants were asked to walk around and experience other participants’ perception of the space. To do so one could step into someone else’s circle and becoming aware of another perspective of the space. Discussions between the participants where encouraged.
Mirror walk
For the next exercise, we walked to the Lange Schipstraat. To get a different feeling from different perspectives of public space, we provided everyone with a particular set of mirrors. The mirrors we designed can be placed under the eyes and therefore allow a disrupted view instead of usually looking on the ground. We wanted to take this metaphor, using the mirror as a tool for reflecting: ideas, insights, but also the urban environment.
Blindfold walk
Arriving in Lange Schipstraat the followed exercise was in pairs. One of the partners closed their eyes, and the other one took care of the partner. After ten minutes we switched, so both experience the two roles of trusting and being trusted, of taking caring and giving care.
Marking feeling
On our way back we to the market square we left open if participants wanted to walk with the mirrors again or take a piece of chalk to mark their final thoughts along the way.
Read the follow-up article about our workshop as part of the London Festival of Architecture here.
This workshop series was developed by Nuria Benítez Gómez, Lin Ching Hung, Wanying Li, Mariano Cuofano and Moritz Dittrich.
