This is an "art exhibition"

Tuesday and Wednesday, Libby, Michelle and I had been hanging out in the coffee area of our department to wait for people to drop by with some objects for the Home is... project.

So, over a number of hours, we sat around, organised, discussed and curated an emerging exhibition. We talked about the use of this weird space that is the communal space in our department, we talked about our contributions and what other people brought, we talked about what we may do with this in the Viewing event next Tuesday.

We also arranged the room differently, turned the table around, moved the chairs around, left a sheet of paper with Names, Titles and media to be added.

When we came back, the 'catalogue' had disappeared, the chairs where back in line and of course, the cleaners had done their work as usual.

So, we rearranged, wrote a note, asking for contributions from the cleaners and asked not to move the furniture.

The note was titled:

This is an "art exhibition"

While for Michelle and myself, it's an art exhibition, Libby insists on an "art exhibition". How intriguing: surveying, measuring and filling the space between research and art. And how the three of us fill it very differently:

• Proposing to hang the pieces either with Bluetak, on board/behind glass or by spirit level and measure tape.
• Inviting people to give titles to their objects or not.
• Wanting to record responses in a variety of ways.

What we do is familiar to all of us, for Libby and myself as part of explorative research methods, for Michelle and I as part of an art exhibition.

I am so curious what our colleagues are making of this - but going by the contributions and various emails en lieu of object contributions, next week's event is looking very promising. Both as "art exhibition" and art exhibition.

Where were we?

... och, right: home.

The cake, the plane, and nothing itches... how did that happen? ...

Home is where the heart is

I had mentioned a while back that one of the small ongoing projects is one with a colleague at work and an artist, Michelle Letowska. The title and theme of Michelle's project is that of home, people's needs and the urban environment.

Home is where the heart is:
Who are the people and what do they need?
Everyone will have his or her own idea of what are fundamental human needs, and the role that home plays in fulfilling our human needs. Human ecologist Alistair McIntosh has adapted Manfred Max-Neef’swheel of fundamental human needs to give parity to water, food, fuel, shelter, protection, participation, identity, understanding, creativity, transcendence and
affection.

As dwellers in cities, we are witness to, and interact with, theoutside structures which most people occupy –tenements, town houses, high flats, maisonettes, bungalows, cottages. What kind of homes do these external walls house? What kinds of homes do those without
external walls of shelter create? How do we live? How do others live?
How does the way we live reflect our human needs and ability to fulfil these? Where can we see that fulfilment in the structures of ourbuilt environment? When does a place become a home?

This project invites participants from across the department of Urban Studies (postgraduate students, researchers, support staff and academic staff) to explore these questions with each other. We invite you to contribute images, photographs, drawings or objects, madeor
found (anything at all!) that reflects your own experience of home. These items will be displayed, as a temporary and informal exhibition, in the coffee area of the department. The exhibition will be a starting point for a discussion on human needs, and the role we all play in providing these, for ourselves and for others.

It will take the form of a found objects exhibition in what is the commons space within our department. A much neglected communal space at the best of times. And that will be an interesting point in its own right.

Michelle (who has a blog at http://omeiswheretheartis.blogspot.com/) is interested in doing an Artist in Residence project within the department as this should be one of the first projects to explore this further.

With all my travelling back and forth and here and there and ensuing change of stuff I'm very intrigued by this project. It also resonates with a conference one of my friends is organising on Transit.

Currently, I'm favouring the following as temporary contribution:

My mother's layered apple cake. The favourite of all my grandparents' for Sunday coffees, my brother and I failed to see why. But here, the passing of time and some physical distance is rather productive in generating memories. It's currently in the oven in my favourite flat in Berlin, waiting for T. & I. to come back from a cycle tour, just needs some whipped cream and good coffee alongside it.

500g flour
20g fresh yeast
1 egg
80g butter
80g sugar
pinch of salt
1/4l lukewarm milk.

Make a yeast dough of the above, let it prove.

Take a (preferably deep) oven tray, roll out one half of the dough for bottom layer.

1.5 kg sharp apples, sliced and cooked with a bit of water, some sugar and a pinch of cinnamon.

Layer the cooked apples on top.

Roll out remaining dough, place carefully on top.

The top, before the cake is put into the hot oven (fan-assisted at 170C, 30min), is speckled with flecks of butter, some sugar and chopped almonds.

Bake. Smell. Let cool. Smell some more. Eat.

Home.... such a fluid concept.