Housing Futures: Archiving Tactics
This edition of Social Talks builds on the housing movement that has gained a new momentum. As a prelude to the Housing Futures weekend, in which conversations on spatial strategies for housing alternatives and non-normative ways of living will take place, the discussion during this evening will rethink how to document and preserve spatial, social and political strategies for current and future generations. What ways are there to document and preserve the tactics, practices and spaces related to alternative housing?
3 February 2022 19:30 - 21:15
As the housing movement gains new momentum, Het Nieuwe Instituut and the Independent School for the City are planning Housing Futures: a weekend of conversations on spatial strategies for housing alternatives and non-normative ways of living. Housing Futures will provide a platform to discuss everything from the future of squatting to the rise of new models for cooperative housing. While the weekend had to be postponed due to the coronavirus regulations (new date to be confirmed), one important discussion will take place online on 3 February.
In this conversation, we will rethink how to document and preserve spatial, social and political strategies for current and future generations. What ways are there to document and preserve the tactics, practices and spaces related to alternative housing? The event will discuss the role of the archive and archiving as a long-term strategy, and examples of both autonomous and institutional archives. From annotating and anonymising information, to using documents in (legal) processes, and the collective caretaking of archives.
With contributions (tbc) by Tashina Blom (ERC_ReACT, Utrecht University), Louwrens Botha and Philippa Driest ( Pension Almonde), Eef Vermeij (International Institute for Social History), Annet Dekker (UvA, Media Studies), and the Housing Futures collective (René Boer, Setareh Noorani, Katía Truijen), Jantje (Hotel Mokum), Simone Rots (Independent School for the City) and others.
Housing Futures
The Independent School for the City and Het Nieuwe Instituut are organising the two-day gathering Housing Futures, a weekend of conversations on spatial strategies for housing alternatives and non-normative ways of living. Housing Futures hopes to give a push to the new movement, with fresh insights and practical advice on future living and on recording and archiving the rise of cooperative housing.
Architecture of Appropriation
The Housing Futures weekend follows on from the research project Architecture of Appropriation which analysed six squatting community case studies in the Netherlands through architectural drawings, interviews and archived materials. Bringing together squatting movement expertise and architects, archivists, scholars and lawyers, the project discussed approaches to the research, archival practices and the representation of precarious, non-author-based, and often criminalised spatial practices in the institutional framework of an archive and museum. The project has led to different public programmes, exhibitions and publications, and is also currently presented as part of the exhibition Appropriation as Collective Resistance, which is part of _Designing the Social_ at Het Nieuwe Instituut.
Researchers Setareh Noorani, Katía Truijen and René Boer present the process and research behind the room "Appropriation as Collective Resistance"
Independent School for the City
The Independent School for the City is a postgraduate educational platform based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The school is an initiative of Crimson Historians and Urbanists and ZUS (Zones Urbaines Sensibles) and is rooted in their practices of combining a critical and activist approach to the city with effecting real change through architectural and planning projects. Recently, the school organised the summer school, Let's Be R¬al: New Strategies for Collective Affordable Housing (2021), and Taking Back Housing! in collaboration with the International New Town Institute (2020).
Social Talks
The Social Talks series forms part of Thursday Night Live! at Het Nieuwe Instituut. The talks offers more insight into themes from the exhibition_ Designing the Social: 100 Years of Idiosyncratic Living in the Netherlands_. The multi-year exhibition examines how Dutch society has been redesigned over the past century. This can be seen in a series of installations in the form of themed rooms exploring the 'minimum dwelling', the community centre, the experiments of Weverij De Ploeg, the design strategies of the second feminist wave, the squatters' movement, and digital pioneers. For each theme, separate teams of curators, researchers and designers have investigated the connections between archival research and current social issues.