Friday Sessions London

Freetown Christiania: Research Presentations and Debate

Individual Research Presentations followed by informal Dinner for everyone, followed by
discussion and debate

Freetown Christiania (www.christiania.org)
The Freetown Christiania in Copenhagen has been in existence for more than three decades. For just as long it has had to defend its self-governed status against the Danish government’s attempt to “normalize” it. Christiania is a unique community and place that holds its own rules, and proves a successful model for collective ownership and living.

The Christiania Researcher in Residence project (http://crir.homepage.dk)
The Christiania Researcher in Residence project was established in regards to the fact that Christiania is part of Denmark’s history and poses questions of what Denmark’s cultural memory is and how it should be formed. These questions are extended to an international context.

Friday Session 08
The evening will start with presentations by Christiania residents involved in the current negotiation regarding Christiania’s status and future, and members of the Christiania Researcher in Residence Project. It will be followed by artists who have been invited by CRIR to develop work in response to Christiania.

An informal dinner will allow everyone to gain energy for a more general discussion on Christiania
as a social, cultural and legal model. The profit made from selling drinks and food will go to CRIR.

Presentations and contributions by

Lise Autogena
London based artist, former Christiania resident and founding member of CRIR.
(www.autogena.org)

Emmerik Warburg
Christinania based sound engineer and video artist, founding member of CRIR and part of Christiania´s activistic society.
(http://home.christiania.org/~emmerik/)
(http://crir.homepage.dk)

Jens Brandt
Architect, activist and member of CRIR, based in Copenhagen and Croatia.
(www.supertanker.info)

Åsa Sonjasdotter
Artist and member of CRIR, based in Sweden, Denmark and Berlin.
(www.potatoperspective.org)

Nicoline van Harskamp
Amsterdam based visual artist; her video project “Christiania Trias Politica” looks into the history of rules and governance in Christiania.
(www.vanharskamp.net)

Jaime Stapleton
London based historian currently working for the World Intellectual Property Organisation; his primary focus was the ‘sense of ownership’ that Christianites have developed in relation to their homes and community and its relation to ‘legal’ ownership of property in Christiania.
(www.jaimestapleton.info)

Neil Chapman & Martin Wooster
UK based artists and writers, whose audio interviews trace an invisible relationship between people and stories in Christiania.
(www.slashseconds.org/issues/001/003/articles/nchapmanmwooster/index.php)

Michael Baers
Berlin based artist, who is asking “What is the Mystery” in his recent comic strip about Christiania, which appeared serially in Ugspjelet, the Christiania community weekly paper
(http://crir.homepage.dk/michaelbaers/mystery_1.html)

Freetown Christiania in Copenhagen, DK, is both a living community and an amazing social and cultural experiment, which keeps developing and evaluating itself. The Christiania Researchers in Residence Porgramme was set up to invite artits from outside to live in Christiania and to develop new work that explores some of the particularities of Christiania.
The evening will start with a number of presentations by artists who have worked from within Christiania, followed by an informal dinner for everyone, and a debate on the current situation of Christiania and the research outcomes in relation it.

For more information visit http://crir.homepage.dk

Names and full programme to be published soon.

Igmade is a collective of artists, designers, architects and theoreticians. It was first formed in Stuttgart in September 2001 as a think and action tank to offer expertise to Stuttgart University’s Institut Grundlagen moderner Architektur und Entwerfen (IGMA). Igmade (which means „made by IGMA“) deals on a theoretical level with the interrelations of space, politics and warfare; based on that it develops book projects, designer toys, dance tracks, architectures, exhibitions and video clips. Since the publication of Igmade’s book „5 Codes: Architecture, Paranoia and Risk in Times of Terror“ (Birkhäuser, 2006), the group became independent from its Stuttgart university context. Its protagonists are now mainly based in Berlin. Current members include Julian Friedauer, Stephan Henrich, Daniel Hundsdörfer, Martin Knöll, Iassen Markov, Dick Martini, Daniel Mock and Stephan Trüby; during the public works session, some of them will present past and present work.

Beth Sandor, projet manager for Urban Village, explained the mixed community regeneration scheme for the inner city site in Tower Hamlets. Though the proposal has been recently rejected by the planning committee it was understood as highly adequate for the site, incorporating a maintenance strategy for sustaining its successful future. Thanks to a very interested group of people, reasons for rejection and potential ways of realising the project on the same or a different site have been discussed. The need for a serious consultation strategy was raised to gain acceptance and support from the neighbouring communities and to make the project a success.

CRISIS is a national charity that fights homelessness and empowers homeless people to fulfill their potential and transform their lives. With Urban Village CRISIS has developed a new model for sustainable communities with affordable homes for low income essential workers and formerly homeless adults.

Urban Village is:

• An innovative concept for socially mixed communities based on tried and tested model from New York
• High quality permanent housing with onsite holistic support and opportunities for work and well being
• A cost effective solution, which tackles multiple agendas across local and central government

• Located on the City Fringe in Tower Hamlets, Urban Village will create 270 units of permanent affordable housing for a mixed community of low income workers and homeless adults unable to move on from an overcrowded hostel system. Urban Village will not only provide high quality, environmentally friendly housing, it will also boast integrated onsite support services including healthy living, training, and employment opportunities. Support services include the New Mildmay Hospital serving people living with AIDS, a Primary Healthcare and 8 bed Detox Centre, and the New Shoreditch Tabernacle Baptist Church.

• Urban Village is based on a successful model pioneered by Common Ground Community in New York in 1990. Common Ground currently operates 1500 units. In 2005, New York City government committed to delivering 9,000 more units.