Friday Sessions London

“In the Friday Session, I will focus on the cityscapes and hope to discuss with the audience questions like: what is the space of a cityscape? And why do I stick to making impressions of a location by looking for details that just give a random and subjective trend of a chosen inlet of the space? How can cityscapes be a screen of the location that is communicating the space around us more like landscape-paintings can do (a genre that tends to narrate our emotional relationship to our environment)? “ Wapke

Feenstra evokes spaces to roam in, get lost in, gather thoughts in or fantasise in, thought-lost. Feenstra has a weakness for objects that, because of their very ordinariness, have no necessary meaning. She places them in a new perspective, creating the space to see them in another way – as mental spaces in which things don’t look as they usually do.
The works are intended to provoke the viewers' associations, and are rarely clear-cut. Many of her works comprise part of a presumed larger whole, but you will never see it all at once. The works are making you aware that the perception is a local and subjective moment, cut out by time and space, but never isolated from culture.

Wapke Feenstra (1959 Wjelsryp, Hennaarderadeel) www.wapke.nl ; studied art at the Jan van Eyckacademie in Maastricht (postgraduate 1991) and works since 1992 as an artist in Rotterdam. Recent outdoor projects are Bathers in Amsterdam (2003) and Bathers in Munich (2005). Recent white cube shows i.e.: Klein Art Works Chicago IL (USA) 2004, Museum of Contemporary Art Heerlen (NL) 2003 & MKgalerie.nl Rotterdam (NL).
Cityscapes can be seen i.e. on the internet www.verhalenvandordrecht.nl , ongoing story collection in Dordrecht (NL) 1999-2009, www.woefwoef.nl , Arnhem (NL) see the city by following the dog routes 2001, www.huisboomfeest.nl , the cyclic time in a neighbourhood in Tilburg (NL) will be shown in pictures and trees 2005-2010.

THE SUBURBANISATION OF THE CITY / THIS IS NOT A GATEWAY – SALONS

The City is being Suburbanised, so said David Harvey at his recent winter lecture at the London School of Economics. His lecture ended with the challenge to the audience, that the City was being suburbanised, that the values and aims of the suburbs are now shaping and forming the city.

TINAG Salons has invited four remarkable urbanists to peer a little closer at his argument, showcasing policy documents, drawing attention to recent projects on the ground, presenting art projects directly dealing with this concern, taking a snapshot of the current social norms and their historical development alongside looking at who and how these ideas have gained currency.

TINAG Salons is the evolution of 2004 Sideshow Salons, which focused on the special kind of madness that is the Thames Gateway / Thames Reach. This series provides the prelude to This Is Not A Gateway, A Festival of European Young Urbanists.

TINAG Salons have niknacked with the kind and warm folk at publicworks, who are hosting this series of salons in their new studio. Like Sideshow, there are always beers and bagels and these have been provided with the foresight that could only come from the LSE Cities Society & LSE Planning Society.

Upcoming TINAG Salons can be found at http://publicworksgroup.net/pages/fridaysession_03.html and www.thisisnotagateway.net

The first THIS IS NOT A GATEWAY SALON held at public works was about THE SUBURBANISATION OF THE CITY. Speakers included Deborah Stevenson, Denna Jones, Allessandra Buonfino and Kathriyn Frith. With additional research conducted by Monica Postiglione. Coordinated by WWW:THISISNOTAGATEWAY.NET