Rotterdam for Real
For the Culture
Since 2018, Het Nieuwe Instituut has worked with Malique Mohamud of Concrete Blossom on the Rotterdam for Real programme, with the shared ambition of documenting the importance of informal culture for the city and its young residents. Mohamud was chosen as a collaborator in the light of his project, The Bodega aka Avondwinkel, completed during a research fellowship at the institute. This work was closely linked to broader research into the informal creative sector, published in 2019 as For the Culture.
For the Culture
Concrete Blossom and Metro 54's study For the Culture brings together the perspectives and stories that are increasingly colouring Rotterdam. The foreword by Malique Mohamud asks:
"How do young Rotterdammers with a migrant background make their way through life? What does it mean to be a Rotterdammer today? And who has control over that? What does it mean that Rotterdam is the youngest and one of the most diverse cities in the Netherlands? For some it's everyday life, for others it is something unique - maybe even exotic. 'Diversity' seems to be the magic word that smooths over the complexity of a city like Rotterdam, but what is going on in the places and with the people who embody this diversity?"
This publication contains essays and stories by various Rotterdammers, such as Simone Zeefuik's De victory lap is een marathon (The victory lap is a marathon) , Lessen trekken uit bars (Drawing lessons from bars) by Fardy Lodovica, and De waarde van sidpaden (The value of pavements) by Maame Hammond.
The publication is accompanied by a short video by photographer and video artist Sharon-Jane Dompig, film-maker Obi Mgbado, and sound designer Jermaine Prince. Web developer Cye Wong Loi Sing created the digital platform where these and other stories are published.
The City That Never Sleeps
On 19 September 2019, For the Culture was presented during Thursday Night Live!: The City That Never Sleeps with several speakers reflecting on the politics of everyday social spaces and their role as transformative places for cultural productions. Contributors included Amal Alhaag, Amina Hussen, Malique Mohamud, Cedric Kouame, Egbert Alejandro Martina, Zeinab Salah and many others.
Bodega Exchange
In collaboration with a group of makers and thinkers from Brussels, Antwerp and Rotterdam, Malique Mohamud developed The Nightshop: Bodega Surrealism in November 2019, an interactive installation performance space around the night shop as archive, meeting place and stage.
Hairdressers, shisha lounges, football fields and neighbourhood shops are spaces where a new urban identity takes root and where diasporic life acquires meaning. These are places where knowledge is stored, produced and shared, so could they also address questions around identification, displacement and post-colonial stress? What would happen if the typologies of these kinds of public and semi-public spaces - and the culture produced there - were at the heart of urban development agendas? How could a hairdresser's be considered a safe space?
Bodega Exchange investigated the regenerative potential of everyday architecture through the lens of generation hip-hop. It built on regenerative design thinking - buildings designed to contribute to a net positive impact on the environment. The belief was that bodegas and other neighbourhood shops have a positive impact on various urban ecologies. For example, products on the shelves of a corner shop offer residents of these neighbourhoods points of reference for their identity construction.
Invited by the Dutch Embassy in Brussels as part of Verve - a Flanders-Netherlands supra-sectoral programme - Mohamud developed Bodega Exchange into a physical installation and programme in a night shop in Rotterdam, with contributions from Belgian designers and artists. The regenerative potential of everyday architecture in diasporic neighbourhoods is central to this mixed-media storytelling project.