Be a bridge, build a mountain
Stavanger, 2024
"Be a bridge, build a mountain" is an urban workshop/dispositive that invites citizens of all ages to collectively explore and intervene in public space. Conecting architecture with performance, it is an invitation to question and transgress the self-imposed and existing rules in the urban space, creating a platform where new hipotesis can be proposed and tested.
In a participatory game, we strive to reclaim the freedom we often see in children playing in the street. In this playful exploration we seek to find an alternative method of investigating a city, as a counterpoint to top-down systems of planning and design. This means creating a situation in which citizens are invited to observe, question and propose new visions to public spaces breacking with protocols and connected to their own different bodies and experiences.
In a site-based workshop format, in the city of Stavanger, Norway, a group of theatre and architecture students were invited to participate in a choreographic perspective of public space. In a first phase, the focus was on re-focusing attention towards the city and urban life, registering our findings in different ways.
Subsequently, a series of modules was created using recycled wood. The intention of the design was to generate a set that had no prescribed uses or references to conventions or habits, thus inviting users to play with it and adapt it to their own imagination, context and needs.
Through body movement and the manipulation of the objects and materials, the group explored the boundaries between private and public, useful and useless, real and imagined. The results were shared in a public presentation where the objects were paraded along the street, while stopping and interacting with different situations and architectural elements.
In the end, the game became open, while the modules were left to be embraced by the public. This openness gave rise to many surprising forms and uses reinventing the space dedicated to parking cars. Now as it has become part of the street furniture of the art centre, it keeps giving space to many other activations and events.
In a cityscape, the game will never repeat itself. Every time different groups, different players, and a different place will emerge.
Credits:
Original Concept:
João Gonçalo Lopes, Sophie Netzer, Gustavo Ciríaco
Norwegian version:
João Gonçalo Lopes and Gustavo Ciríaco
Local collaboration and assistance:
Ingrid Dahle
Students Participating:
Theatre, communications and interculturality students from University of Stavanger
Design and architecture students from Stavanger Urban Folkehøyskole
Student coordinators:
Lidia Cangiano, Elise Ruth Robstad
Production:
Benjamin Hickethier, Carlos Correia, Valentina Mariscal
Graphic Design for communication:
Benjamin Hickethier
Promotor:
Folkegata
In partnership with:
Rogaland Kunstsenter, Stavanger Urban Folkehøyskole, University of Stavanger
Photography:
Ingrida Mockutė, Benjamin Hickethier, Christian Schöberle, Gustavo Ciríaco, João Gonçalo Lopes, Ingrid Dahle