Translocal, Transnational, and Hybrid Spatial Spaces

We (Francesca Ceola and Simone Rueß) designed a processual multimedia workshop to encounter, reflect upon, and upend questions on translocality, of transnationalism, and of hybrid cultural and space-oriented structures. Working actively with the workshop room using time-based, graphic, and performative languages, we aimed to ground broad, abstract concepts in graspable experiences. We first got into the atmosphere of thinking visually by watching and discussing Camilo Bravo Molano’s audio-visual work “Liquid Homes”: a film portrait mapping a displaced person’s experience in Portugal. The participants were then invited to share ideas and explore possibilities to translate and elaborate on the broad concepts of translocality, transnationalism, and hybrid spatialities. We used graphic prompts, language, and performative explorations to enhance this embodied analysis that we developed both individually, then collectively. The workshop closed with a lecture by Prof. Dr. Magdalena Nowicka through a self-reflection on spatialities of migrants and transnational affect. She put in words aspects and differences of transnational and translocal homes introduced to us through Bravo Molano’s film images in the beginning of the workshop.

More to read about on our blogpost @sfb1265

Facing Pairs and Changing Dialogue Partners: A Drawing-Exchange in Transition

The participants were sitting along tables, in a line, in the room. In the middle of the tables, a line of drawings was laid out: to stimulate sensorial reflections including division, connection, detachment, leaving behind, and new beginnings. The lines drawn on paper represented a visual simplification of complex relationships of translocality, transnationality or hybridity. They could be associated with borders, border crossings, border dissolutions, and separation. The drawing paper and pens handed out to each participant invited personal pictorial reproductions, transformations, or further developments of the graphic proposals. Participants in pairs exchanged about the graphics lying between them in one moment, only to be urged to abandon the conversation at the next, leaving their exchanges behind, and proceeding to the following dialogue partner. Engaging in couple-of-minutes increments  almost overwhelmed us with a threefold intensity: the sound of all engaged voices, the flow of ideas, and the frantic timing of conversation changes.

The series of drawings laid out on the tables to initiate and orient participants’ conversations were inspired by the artist Chiara Carrer’s book Pensar el espacio. Reflejos, superficies, y colores (transl. “Thinking the Space. Reflections, surfaces, and colors”). Some drawings are a direct re-interpretation of Chiara Carrer, while others were developed from the drawing research of Simone Rueß and her conversations on spatial imaginations with more than 30 interviewees from all over the world. (excerpt of the blogpost @sfb1265)

A Room with Borders, Barriers, and Open Forms: An Embodied Non-verbal Interaction

(...)

Participants were confronted with the challenge of having to leave their present position in the room to reach another point in the space, limited by the four structural walls but also some additional cardboard walls. Acting in their own space, participants initially imperceptibly created a common structure of changing distances in the room. Forms and shapes of paper left behind, foreign lines, and cut-outs found at the next position, they gradually triggered more conscious interactions with spatial traces of the others. One sequential letter after the other, local and migrated shapes formed fragile hybrid common figurations. (excerpt of the blogpost @sfb1265)

Islands of Creation and Synthesis: Individual and Collective Reflexion, drawings and ensembles by María Linares (1), anonymous participant (2), Ludovica Tomarchio (3), Workshop part 5, 2024.

Islands of Creation and Synthesis: Individual and Collective Reflections in a Shared Space

(...)

The rapid, time-framed and place-constrained interactions explored during the workshop can be observed and were intentionally initiated as cues for refiguration of spatial, social, psychological, and cognitive (as in how associations of ideas are enhanced) arrangements and constellations that tell us something around concepts of translocality, transnationality, and hybrid cultural space-oriented structures. The setup of a laboratory with sequential tasks and reflection allowed us to grasp the nature of these spatial structures both in an abstract and elementary way. Film, verbal exchange, figurative language, movement, drawing, symbols, performance, objects, language, and lecture. In diverse media and transdisciplinary reflections, we looked at these formats and terms from various sides, as if we deconstructed their characters into multifaceted multiple layers. Thinking towards expanding the edges of the refiguration theory vis-à-vis territorial structures, we engaged with the diffracted meanings of translocalization with a postnationalist critique to explore practices, memories, and meaning-making at multiple levels: socio-material, ecological-economic, and symbolic-transcendent. As a result, the drift of notions, shifts, and hybridization were not just a conceptual exercise but also a figurative and embodied one". (Conclusion in our blogpost @sfb1265)

Warszawa Centralna

Przestrzeń Działań Społecznych

In the workshop led by Simone Rueß, a collective map was created based on a performative exploration of urban space. The starting point were mental images of selected spaces of Katowice and performative and linguistic interactions with places such as the train station, the shopping center and the pedestrian zone.

The aim was to draw attention to the network of socio-spatial relationships in Katowice. According to Martina Löw's relational spatial concept, space is a constantly changing arrangement of people, other living beings, goods and architectural objects. This space is synthesized through the processes of
perception, imagination and memory.


Furthermore, Simone Rueß' concept for the workshop was based on Kevin Lynch's (1960) idea of the mental image of the city and Grzegorz Kowalski's theory and teaching of the “own/common space”. (Excerpt summary of the workshop at NIAiU, Warsaw)


In dem von Simone Rueß geleiteten Workshop wurde eine kollektive Karte auf Basis einer performativen Erforschung des städtischen Raums erstellt. Ausgangspunkt waren mentale Bilder ausgewählter Räume von Katowice und performative und sprachliche Interaktionen mit Orten wie dem Bahnhof, dem Einkaufszentrum und der Fußgängerzone. Ziel war es, die Aufmerksamkeit auf das Netz der sozialräumlichen Beziehungen in Katowice zu lenken. Nach Martina Löws relationalem Raumkonzept zufolge ist der Raum eine sich ständig verändernde Anordnung von Menschen, anderen Lebewesen, Waren und architektonischen Objekten. Dieser Raum wird durch die Prozesse der Wahrnehmung, der Vorstellung und der Erinnerung synthetisiert. Simone Rueß‘ Konzept für den Workshop stützte sich außerdem auch auf Kevin Lynchs (1960) Idee des mentalen Bildes der Stadt sowie auf Grzegorz Kowalskis Lehre vom „Eigenen/Gemeinsamen Raum“. (Ausschnitt Zusammenfassung des Workshops at NIAiU, Warschau: https://niaiu. pl/2024/05/przestrzen-dzialan-spolecznych-podsumowanie-warsztatow/)

Dworzec Centralny (Warsaw)

Stadt/körper (Bundesplatz)

I see Berlin’s Bundesplatz as a public sculpture. This space is characterized by a car-friendly urban design featuring a central underpass to ensure traffic flow remains unimpeded. Pedestrians access the U-Bahn and S-Bahn via underpasses. A small green traffic island remains as a place to linger amidst the noise of the big city. This urban structure is typical of the reconstruction in West Germany after World War II. The Phoenix sculpture by Bernd Wilhelm Blank on the square directly in front of the intersection addresses the new beginning after 1945. With my intervention “Stadtkörper,” I question the concept of an urban renewal that confronts residents, passersby, and non-human beings with enormous spatial tensions.


Den Berliner Bundesplatz verstehe ich als eine begehbare Skulptur. Dieser Ort ist geprägt durch eine autogerechte Stadtplanung mit einem zentralem Autotunnel für einen ungehinderten Verkehrsfluss. Passant*innen gelangen durch Unterführungen zur U- und S-Bahn. Eine kleine grüne Verkehrsinsel bleibt für den Aufenthalt inmitten des Großstadtlärms. Diese urbane Stadtstruktur ist typisch für den Wiederaufbau in Westdeutschland nach dem 2. Weltkrieg. Die Phönix-Skulptur von Bernd Wilhelm Blank auf dem Platz direkt vor der Verkehrskreuzung thematisiert den Neuanfang nach 1945. Mit meiner Intervention "Stadtkörper" hinterfrage ich das Konzept des städtebaulichen Neuanfangs, welche die Bewohner*innen, Passant*innen und nicht-menschliche Wesen mit enormen räumlichen Spannungsfeldern konfrontiert. 

„it’s a play of forms, charming, quiet. hollow space here, filled space there. You walk through the underpasses, along walls and corners, down stairs, up escalators. You barely pay attention to it, you only want to get from A to B, you switch off all feeling, don’t want to see anyone, smell anything, taste anything."

Excerpt from my text "My body is the place of my lived experience“, read during the intervention 

.
"Es ist ein Spiel der Formen, 
reizvoll, ungestört. 
Hier ein Hohlraum, dort Füllraum. 
Du gehst durch Gänge, 
an Wänden entlang, 
um Ecken, 
Treppen hinab, 
Rolltreppen hinauf. 
Du bemerkst es kaum. 
Du willst nur von A nach B. 
Du schaltest deine Gefühle aus. 
Willst niemanden sehen, 
nichts riechen, nichts schmecken.“

Im Rahmen von: 

Echo Echo – Ein Parcours durch den Stadtraum

Skulpturverein lädt zu einem künstlerischen Parcours durch den öffentlichen Raum ein. Im Verlauf eines gemeinsamen Spaziergangs begegnet das Publikum bestehenden Skulpturen, die im Stadtraum oft unbeachtet bleiben – stille Zeugnisse vergangenen Gestaltungswillens, politischer Narrative oder künstlerischer Positionen. An jeder Station reagiert eine der beteiligten Küstlerinnen mit temporären Arbeiten, Interventionen oder Performance auf eine existierende Skulptur. Ihre Beiträge fungieren als dialogische Kommentare, als zeitgenössische Spiegelungen oder Kontrapunkte zu den in der Vergangenheit von Männern geschaffenen Kunstwerken. Sie eröffnen neue Perspektiven auf das bereits Vorhandene und stellen Fragen zu Repräsentation, Geschichte und Sichtbarkeit im öffentlichen Raum. Die Bewegung durch die Stadt – als kollektives Flanieren – wird Teil des Erlebens. Der Parcours verbindet die Stationen zu einem sinnlichen und intellektuellen Prozess: Kunst im Raum, Kunst im Dialog, Kunst in Bewegung. ECHO ECHO versteht sich als Einladung zum Sehen, Denken und Weitergehen – gemeinsam, draußen, mitten in der Stadt. (Text: Skulpturverein) 

Parcours:
ELISABETH ROSENTHAL – Speerwerfer, Karl Möbius, 1921 ULRIKA SEGERBERG / special guest matka – Zwei Brunnenskulpturen, M. Schoenholtz, 1979 HILDEGARD SKOWASCH – Winzerin, Friedrich Drake, 1854/1910 SIMONE RUEß – Phoenix, Bernd Wilhelm Blank,1968 YASMIN ALT – Olympionike, Demetros Anastasatos, 1961 ANNA BORGMAN – U-Bahn Heidelberger Platz, Wilhelm Leitgebel, 1913 GLORIA ZEIN – Reiterskulptur, Springer Natur Akademischer Verlag 
KYOCO TANIYAMA – Siegfriedbrunnen, Emil Cauer d. J., 1911
Stadt/körper (Bundesplatz), 2025. engl: city/body/fragment, A counterpoint to “Phoenix” by Bernd Wilhelm Blank, 1968. Gray cardboard, Finnboard, lacquer. As part of ECHO ECHO, an artistic tour along existing sculptures in public spaces.

Baukörper (RD Śródmieście)

Etagenkörper II

Kreuzkörper II

Kreuzkörper

Kreuzung mit U-Bahn-Geäst (Charlottenplatz)

Etagenkörper I (Charlottenplatz, Stuttgart)

Charlottenplatz (Stuttgart)

Patelnia

Streams of passers-by stretch out in spatial relation to each other. You move beside other people, encountering other pedestrians, following someone in the same direction, sometimes even using the same trace as the person in front of you - just unconsciously, approaching somebody or meeting someone in the plaza; you leave buildings or objects behind you, and so on. The layout of the plaza influences the movements through its structure and organization. But it is not only the layout and the architecture that gives the place its structure. It is the movement and all the spatial relations in between all the moving subjects and objects that give the central plaza its intrinsic logic. In the Patelnia underground, the metropolitan element of Warsaw clashes with its provincial element (Joanna Kusiak, 2012: ...). Street sellers, standing in the middle of the platform, have an impact on the movement of the Varsovians rushing to metro station on their way to work.