'Who is We?' on the HNI website
Digital presentation Who is We: https://whoiswe.nl/
The Venice Biennale (Italian: Biennale di Venezia) is a leading international art event that has been held in Venice every other year in the summer months from June to November since 1895. Nowadays a distinction is made in the different art disciplines: visual arts, architecture, music, theater and dance. The Art Biennale takes place in the odd years and the Architecture Biennale in even years. Due to the corona pandemic, the Biennale has been postponed to 2021.
At each Archituur Biennale, an international curator is appointed who formulates the main question on which all countries inspire their contribution. The curator of the 17th edition is Hashim Sarkis and he asks the question: 'How will we live together?' In reply he states: "We need a new spatial contract in the context of widening political divides and growing economic inequalities. We call on architects to imagine spaces in which we can generously live together.
Het Nieuwe Instituut is the commissioner of the Dutch Pavilion. With 'Who is We?' this Pavilion responds to the main question of the Biennale. In Venice and the Netherlands, 'Who is We?' offers live encounters and digital reflections from various disciplines and collaborators. Contributors architect Afaina de Jong and artist Debra Solomon deconstruct normative concepts of space such as ‘terra nullius’ and ‘tabula rasa’, visualising what remains unseen behind the dominant structures that define spaces.
'Who is We?' on the HNI website
Digital presentation Who is We: https://whoiswe.nl/
Rhythm is a hold. Rhythm gives us structure. Rhythm is everywhere; within ourselves, between us, and around us. Rhythms form markers in time. These markings give meaning to daily existence, they indicate when we get up, go to school, work, play sports, are free or sleep. In short, rhythms give structure to our lives and if they weren't there, time would seem to run endlessly.
Just now that our daily rhythms are constantly being turned upside down by corona, we are looking for new guidance. From spring 2020 to summer 2021, more than 100 artists and scientists worked together to search for that footing, as part of the Values for Survival research program. They didn't know each other and most of the time they couldn't meet as well. Yet they found a rhythm in their interaction and managed to exchange their unique knowledge and stories.
Because rhythm is in everything and everyone, it is also very suitable for teaching children and young people about it. This is how the book 'We Are Rhythm' came about. 15 extraordinary stories about rhythms, everyday and unusual. Browse (scroll) through the book and let yourself be carried away by the unique stories, illustrations and images. The stories can also be listened to as a podcast, with music and sounds that let you feel the rhythms of life.
'We Are Rhythm' is an adaptation of Cahier 3, Tuning to Rhythm, of the research program Values for Survival. This is the Amsterdam parallel research program of the Dutch contribution to the 17th Architecture Biennale in Venice. At the request of Het Nieuwe Instituut, this program was designed by Caroline Nevejan, the Chief Science Officer of the Municipality of Amsterdam.
Do you have any questions about the content or would you like to become involved in the follow-up research? Send an email to the editors: openresearch@amsterdam.nl
The central question of the 17th Architecture Biennale is ‘How will we live together?’. The Dutch Pavilion answers this question with another question; ‘Who is We?’. With Multiplicity of Other and Multispecies Urbanism the Dutch Pavilion presents two possible responses. The research program Values for Survival gives another, parallel reaction to these questions: if we live together, we will need to TUNE into all multiplicity and all multispecies around. In Cahier 3 we see that ‘we are rhythm and so is the world’. Tuning to rhythm of others is a core value for survival we need now.
In the last hour of the online opening of the Dutch Pavilion, three musicians from three musical traditions will perform the special concert Tuning to Rhythm. In this online improvisation, rhythm as a uniting force in diversity will be explored. Sharing the first beat, offering entrances to each other, overcoming delays, the three musicians explore how to tune to difference and to moments of shared harmony at the same time. With Sirishkumar Manji (tabla, vocal), Mistah Isaac (gitar, vocal), Reinier van Houdt (piano). This concert came about after ten hours of rehearsals. With thanks to Source Elements for the networked music support.
You can already read the conversations between Source Elements and the three musicians of the concert below (only available in English). The concert itself will be added to this collection later, together with the concert rehearsals.
In this collection you can find all separate chapters of Cahier 1, 2 and 3 together.
Cahier 1 sets the scene of the state of affairs in Amsterdam. Scientists and policymakers, selected contributors to the 17th Architecture Biennale and other designers wrote in the first five chapters about the urgent social and climate practices as well as identifying dilemmas, concepts and solutions for the era to come: the need to re-connect personal, collective and urban planning practices; the need to develop methodologies for productive landscapes in cities; the need to train to be fit in anticipation of the climate crisis; the potential to use data in new ways; the need to share research between disciplines and share knowledge; the potential of the doughnut model for the circular economy on city level.
Click on 'more information to find a link to NAi Booksellers where you can order a hard copy.
Here you can find all chapters within Values for Survival, the Venice Exploratorium: Cahier 2. Cahier 2 offers insight in a series of experiments that aimed to affect the physical reality in cities while the experiments were highly dependent on online communication in the first place. Next to experiments in Lisbon, Amsterdam and in a European network for research in cities , the City Science Initiative, the main focus of the experiments was on Venice. Here we worked together with We are here Venice, an NGO for evidence-based policymaking for the living city of Venice.
We orchestrated collaboration between ten small teams in which diverse disciplines worked together on challenges that Amsterdam and Venice share: climate, water, tourism, social and ecological justice in and around the city. Aiming to give voice to the people present in Venice and to other and more-than-human beings that reside in Venice as well, artistic and scientific research experiments were conducted. As result specific areas in the Venice lagoon were highlighted, methodologies were developed and new concepts were introduced. The rhythm in the reciprocity of creative exchanges in those teams, made trust flourish and inspired rigorous work. Every team created its own designed pages which together make Cahier 2, a publication that is colourful and wild in ideas.
This collection consists of:
1. The Venice Exploratorium Map
2. We are here Venice - This organization was part of the curatorial team of the Venice Exploratorium
3. International Online Exploratorium - Different research groups worked together online. The results of their work can be seen in Cahier 2
4. Complete version of Cahier 2, to read and/or download.
5. Separate chapters 6-20, together with additional work and information per research track.
To buy a hard-copy of the Cahier, click on 'more information'.
(In Values for Survival - Cahier 1, also published on openresearch.amsterdam, you can find the chapters 0-5.)
This cahier was made in collaboration with We are here Venice.
Commissioned by Het Nieuwe Instituut.
Buy a hard copy of the cahier via: NAi Booksellers
Cahier 3 is all about Rhythm. From rhythm of breath and heartbeat, to the rhythm of recurring seasons and growing plants, to rhythm in music and dance to; rhythm appears to be something that connects people with one another and with nature. When we face major challenges in the world, we can hold on to rhythm. Rhythm makes us resilient, because it is always there. We can fall back on it when we need to. And when we tune to rhythm afresh, it is possible to imagine again.
So, when we integrate social and ecological dynamics (explored in Cahier 1 and 2), rhythm is a force that connects different spheres. Rhythm relates to the magic of direct aesthetic experience. Rhythm holds the network together and defines what happens next. Musicians, crafts people, dancers, surfers, biologists or psychologists have in depth knowledge about rhythm without even formulating it.
For this third Cahier, Caroline Nevejan (Chief Science Officer and principle investigator of Values for Survival) together with designer Huda AbiFarès, asked various researchers with different backgrounds to write a story about rhythm as they notice this dynamic in their field of expertise. They were asked to tell the story for children of about 11 years old. Every author’s story was then given to an experienced visual artist to illustrate and tell the story visually as well. As result the Cahier 3 offers a special and beautiful insight in the force of rhythm. Tuning to rhythm emerges as the Value for Survival we need.
All chapters in this Cahier start with a painting by Simon Gawronski.
(Click on 'more information' to find a link to NAi Booksellers, where you can buy a hard-copy of this cahier)
When leaving the Dutch pavilion in the Giardini in Venice, visitors are offered a map that indicates the locations where experiments were conducted for the research program Values for Survival, documented in Cahier 2. The backside of the map sketches all the different elements of Values for Survival, published in Cahier 1, 2 and 3.
The map is designed by Huda AbiFarès and Studio Wild.
(The PDF is fully visible on this page. It is a large file so it may take a while for the document to fully load. Download link can be found below, under 'documents'.)
All chapters about the different experiments in 'Cahier 2 - The Venice Exploratorium' can be found here.
In this collection you can find video an audio material made in the context of Values for Survival.
Click on 'more information' to see what you can find in this collection.
Here you can find evaluations of different contributors to Values for Survival. In the first article you can find a conversation between the principal investigator and the principal designer of this research program; Caroline Nevejan and Huda AbiFarès.