Journal article:
‘You can simply say no’: Narrating the effects and affects of Danish and Swedish housing in crisis
Abstract: Narratives about the ‘failure’ of large-scale post-World War II housing are now guiding major physical, social, and economic changes in neighborhoods all over Europe. This is true even in Denmark and Sweden, which have long been known for their welfare states and benevolent housing policies. Today, however, both countries have enacted new national anti-segregation measures that call for major physical and social changes to neighborhoods built in the postwar era, even as the opinions of local communities and residents of such neighborhoods have been only sparsely heard—if at all. By working with the method ‘witness seminars’, we—as the research collective Aktion Arkiv— foreground residents’ perspectives and their collective resistance: the effects and affects of top-down changes. While sharing their lived experiences and actions, residents say that architects and planners can ‘simply say no’ and thereby refuse to participate in these actions.
Keywords: Housing, lived experience, crisis, affect, repressive politics, oral history
Read the full article here.
Published Jan 2024.
‘You can simply say no’: Narrating the effects and affects of Danish and Swedish housing in crisis
Abstract: Narratives about the ‘failure’ of large-scale post-World War II housing are now guiding major physical, social, and economic changes in neighborhoods all over Europe. This is true even in Denmark and Sweden, which have long been known for their welfare states and benevolent housing policies. Today, however, both countries have enacted new national anti-segregation measures that call for major physical and social changes to neighborhoods built in the postwar era, even as the opinions of local communities and residents of such neighborhoods have been only sparsely heard—if at all. By working with the method ‘witness seminars’, we—as the research collective Aktion Arkiv— foreground residents’ perspectives and their collective resistance: the effects and affects of top-down changes. While sharing their lived experiences and actions, residents say that architects and planners can ‘simply say no’ and thereby refuse to participate in these actions.
Keywords: Housing, lived experience, crisis, affect, repressive politics, oral history
Read the full article here.
Published Jan 2024.
Seminar:
Solidarity in times of repressive politics – a seminar on the effects of the concepts “especially/vulnerable areas”
Panelists:
-Marlen Eskander, social antropologist, executive director and founder of Läsfrämjarinstitutet,
-Beata Hemer, architect and member of the association Initiativet for Retfærdig Boligpolitik/Almen Modstand and Almen Arkiv, Danmark.
-Ilhan Kellecioglu, researcher and active member of Ort till Ort and author of “Rapport inifrån Hemblahelvetet”
-Marie Northroup, antropologist and member of the association Initiativet for Retfærdig Boligpolitik/Almen Modstand and Almen Arkiv, Danmark.
-Nazem Tahvilzadeh, political scientist and researcher.
Moderator: Maryam Fanni
Panel discussion + poster exhibition at Folkets Husby
Funded by ARQ c/o White AB – Foundation for architecture research and FFNS Foundation for research, development and education
October 2022
Solidarity in times of repressive politics – a seminar on the effects of the concepts “especially/vulnerable areas”
Panelists:
-Marlen Eskander, social antropologist, executive director and founder of Läsfrämjarinstitutet,
-Beata Hemer, architect and member of the association Initiativet for Retfærdig Boligpolitik/Almen Modstand and Almen Arkiv, Danmark.
-Ilhan Kellecioglu, researcher and active member of Ort till Ort and author of “Rapport inifrån Hemblahelvetet”
-Marie Northroup, antropologist and member of the association Initiativet for Retfærdig Boligpolitik/Almen Modstand and Almen Arkiv, Danmark.
-Nazem Tahvilzadeh, political scientist and researcher.
Moderator: Maryam Fanni
Panel discussion + poster exhibition at Folkets Husby
Funded by ARQ c/o White AB – Foundation for architecture research and FFNS Foundation for research, development and education
October 2022
Photo: Aktion Arkiv
Witness seminar:
Caring for Plans: Narratives of the Parallel Society Package
Panelists:
- Elsebeth Frederiksen, member of Almen Modstand and resident of Gellerup neighbourhood, Aarhus, Denmark
- Alex Young Pedersen, member of Almen Modstand and resident of Bispeparken, Aarhus, Denmark
– Søren-Emil Schütt, member of Almen Modstand and resident of Lundtoftegade, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Fatma Tounsi, member of Almen Modstand and resident of Bellahøj, Denmark
Moderators: Heidi Svenningsen Kajita and Svava Riesto
Witness seminar + exhibits by Almen Arkiv and students from the MA program of Landscape Architecture, University of Copenhagen, at the community building of the housing area Lundtoftegade, under the wings of the CAFX Copenhagen Architecture Festival
Funded by ARQ c/o White AB – Foundation for architecture research and FFNS Foundation for research, development and education
October 2021
Caring for Plans: Narratives of the Parallel Society Package
Panelists:
- Elsebeth Frederiksen, member of Almen Modstand and resident of Gellerup neighbourhood, Aarhus, Denmark
- Alex Young Pedersen, member of Almen Modstand and resident of Bispeparken, Aarhus, Denmark
– Søren-Emil Schütt, member of Almen Modstand and resident of Lundtoftegade, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Fatma Tounsi, member of Almen Modstand and resident of Bellahøj, Denmark
Moderators: Heidi Svenningsen Kajita and Svava Riesto
Witness seminar + exhibits by Almen Arkiv and students from the MA program of Landscape Architecture, University of Copenhagen, at the community building of the housing area Lundtoftegade, under the wings of the CAFX Copenhagen Architecture Festival
Funded by ARQ c/o White AB – Foundation for architecture research and FFNS Foundation for research, development and education
October 2021
Photo: Francesco Martello
Forum Theatre:
Caring for Communities
A theater play dealing with common rooms as a conflict area between bureaucracy and community action.
The project was initiated by Action Archive + Beatrice Stüde and produced in collaboration with Arkitekturzentrum Wien. Theater der Unterdrückten Wien (http://tdu-wien.at) was commissioned to develop the play and the process was led by Magoa Hanke och Veronika Vitovec. Actors were; Erica Ras, Evdokia Romanova, Hannes Reitberger and Katharina Fischer.
Presented in connection with the exhibition Critical Care: Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet (Az W, 2019).
Nordbahnhof, Vienna, AT
September 2019
Caring for Communities
A theater play dealing with common rooms as a conflict area between bureaucracy and community action.
The project was initiated by Action Archive + Beatrice Stüde and produced in collaboration with Arkitekturzentrum Wien. Theater der Unterdrückten Wien (http://tdu-wien.at) was commissioned to develop the play and the process was led by Magoa Hanke och Veronika Vitovec. Actors were; Erica Ras, Evdokia Romanova, Hannes Reitberger and Katharina Fischer.
Presented in connection with the exhibition Critical Care: Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet (Az W, 2019).
Nordbahnhof, Vienna, AT
September 2019
Photo: Maria Noisternig
Publication:
Caring for Communities
This publication collects the notes from Aktion Arkivs ethnographic field studies of summer 2017 of newly built common rooms in the Nordbahnviertel (the Northern Railway District) in Vienna. It comprises excerpts from guided home tours and interviews with residents, representatives of the Nordbahn district management and a non-profit housing developer. Developed in collaboration with Architekturzentrum Wien.
Published by Action Archive Publishing, Stockholm 2019
Funded by Formas (SRE Architecture in the Making), ARQ c/o White AB and Architekturzentrum Wien - AzW
2019
Caring for Communities
This publication collects the notes from Aktion Arkivs ethnographic field studies of summer 2017 of newly built common rooms in the Nordbahnviertel (the Northern Railway District) in Vienna. It comprises excerpts from guided home tours and interviews with residents, representatives of the Nordbahn district management and a non-profit housing developer. Developed in collaboration with Architekturzentrum Wien.
Published by Action Archive Publishing, Stockholm 2019
Funded by Formas (SRE Architecture in the Making), ARQ c/o White AB and Architekturzentrum Wien - AzW
2019
