Błażej Filanowski
MAKING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PLACES. ARTISTIC PRACTICES THAT BREAK FUNCTIONAL AND PERFORMATIVE SPATIAL HABITS

Il. Jan Mioduszewski

Features of specific fragments of a space adapted by humans are best seen where they come into contact. According to Richard Sennett,¹ this is exactly where a blockage of flow may occur, or a spatial ecotone – a place of incomplete separation, facilitating diverse forms of exchange. The term “ecotone” has been borrowed from natural sciences and transferred to the socio‑urban context. It is applied to transition zones between two or more wholly distinct ecosystems such as, for instance, a meadow and a forest, in which species from adjacent ecosystems are found as well as organisms for which the miscellany of such an ecotone provides favourable conditions. Richard Sennett claims that a thorough urban planner ought to identify and reinforce the areas of intersection of the activeness of various actors operating in the city. Permeation of established boundaries and identification of potential ecotones are among the concerns of people dealing with art. Motivations behind exploring diverse spatial environments vary from a will to keep record or a search for inspiration to – and this is going to be our main focus – a search for somewhere to work or to give artistic expression. Artistic activities frequently require adaptation of relatively large spaces which, with limited resources, necessitates creativity.

For Tore Kristensen,² creative processes are as a set of subprocesses that interpenetrate by layers and combine in various ways. They include, amongst others, the creation of values, scaffolding or restricted materialisation of knowledge into forms (sketch, model, etc.), imagining and acting towards the materialisation of a concept (e.g. as a prototype). He points out that these subprocesses are located in a physical place invested with properties and conditions which evoke specific associations and emotions. The specificity of the location and related sensory experiences stimulate some cognitive processes while constraining others, which affects the state of our creativity.

Leveraging this knowledge to design stimulating workplaces are corporations for which constant innovation is a key competitive advantage.³ Google’s offices, be they in New York or Warsaw, have different zones fostering creativity at work. These include fairly standard conference rooms as well as “phone booths” that isolate employees from the hustle and bustle, themed workstations with various types of lighting, adorned with plants or provided with exercise and play equipment. Such environments were tested beforehand in Google’s pilot projects and met with a positive reception from employees who thought they stimulated creativity and facilitated collaboration in small flexible teams.

Artistic practices that involve adaptation of diverse spaces constitute a similar type of (self-)stimulation, even if designed with less precision and more open to chance and randomness. Having found a potential site of action, an artist effects a hybridisation of pre‑existing physical features and cultural norms with the fruits of their own invention. Places with a history, an unusual “atmosphere” and a reservoir of the right “energy” create good conditions for breaking patterns in various realms, in individual practice as well as in cultural practices to a limited extent. An aspect of the breach and hybridisation that is rarely taken noticed of is their performativity. The process of searching for and adapting places involves an exploration of space – carried out by means of a physical transformation of it or by testing the social norms that determine it. This means challenging the existing performative socio‑spatial order.⁴ In this article, I intend to demonstrate that artistic practices can act as a catalyst for change in urban areas by creating (more or less permanent) zones that hybridise different sorts of established spatial orders.

Arguments in favour of this thesis are provided in the following discussion in the form of various artistic activities⁵ that strive to push back the visible and invisible boundaries that cause the blockage of flow and create (if only short‑term) places of exchange – ecotones. They lead to the emergence of spaces for artistic work and expression for people active in the visual, architectural, spatial and performative fields, not infrequently with a component of activism and play.

At the junction of functional zones

The functional division of urban space is perfectly illustrated by virtual city‑building simulators. The classic products of this type – such as SimCity – position the players in an “American” spatial situation. The area they are to plan is nearly uninhabited so their first task is to provide the necessary transport, water, sewage and energy infrastructure to attract residents, but it is also vital that they should designate the zones – residential, office and retail, and industrial, for the city to come to life. A simu­lator user marks an area on the board, and over time, new functionally homogeneous developments appear on it.

In his work written in 1804, Claude Nicolas Ledoux⁶ described the functional division into residential, production and commercial spheres – a recipe for the proper development of cities with increasing populations and growing industry. Interlacing oneiric scenes with matter‑of‑fact conclusions, this rather unique text encompassed the architect’s reflections on a reorganised secular society and on architecture as an aesthetic key to developing civic virtues as well as economic and organisational progress. By providing efficient transport and hygiene, the new city was supposed to be conducive to coordinated development. Green belts separating specific sections of the city, particularly residential areas, from polluted industrial zones served this function. Before the productivity revolution which led to rapid urban growth greenery in a walled city was an addition or a luxury. And it was green belts that superseded dismantled fortifications in Vienna or Kraków, opening the cities to new districts that started to emerge in the 19th century.

Family allotment gardens constitute a specific type of green spaces found in Polish cities. Rented gardens for growing vegetables and fruit, situated in urban areas, appeared in European cities as early as the 18th century. The oldest allotments in Poland are those in the province of Wielkopolska.⁷ A peculiar distinctiveness, fragility and unobtrusiveness of family allotment zones when contrasted with neighbouring areas are represented by Frank Ammer and Maciej Rawluk’s photographs and installation shown at the Sielanka. Co artyści uprawiają [Idyll. What Do Artists Cultivate?] exhibition.⁸ The photographs express a sensitivity to discontinuities in the urban fabric, referred to as “edges”⁹ by Kevin Lynch because, as his research participants reported, they conveyed a profound sense of separation between specific spaces in the city image.¹⁰

Taken with a drone, Maciej Rawluk’s wide‑angle photographs reveal the boundaries and interconnections of the plots with their surroundings. One of the most striking contrasts comes from two different worlds being put side by side – a modern minimalist apartment building adjoining the allotment zone and the plots with their diverse organisation and structures of all sorts. Unified small balconies used by residents of the new building are juxtaposed with spaces brimming with individual creativity. Both, the residents of the apartment building and the allotment users are becoming – or will soon become – mutual observers of daily life in the “other world” each of which, despite the contrasts, is to fulfil the same purpose: relaxation.¹¹ Other photographs depict allotments surrounded, like a courtyard, by residential architecture or industrial installations, bordered by vast shopping centres, railway lines or massive road junctions supported by pylons. Family allotment gardens are areas of peace and deceleration, but also of biological chaos in efficiency‑oriented forms of spatial organisation.

These areas are attracting artistic attention and provoking attempts at their adaptation. As part of the Naprzód działki [Forward Allotments] programme, staged by the Warsaw Greenery Management in collaboration with SAM Rozkwit and Stroboskop Art Space, an attempt was made to engage art in the discussion about the accessibility of allotments for disabled people. The aim of the project was to illustrate various ways of experiencing these spaces and to raise awareness of their inclusiveness. In 2022, a call for applications was announced from artists wishing to partake in the artistic residency programme Creating Space: Accessibility, Art and Allotment, which took place on plot no. 77 in the Sady Żoliborskie Allotments. Artist Daniel Kotowski, writer Dorota Kotas and the Wielozmysły Foundation organised the event. Daniela Weiss won the residency with her project Psychodziałka [Psychoallotment] which emphasised the therapeutic aspect of the contact with nature made possible by using an allotment.

Run in collaboration with artists, the programme Naprzód działki addresses the question of the openness of family allotments to people from beyond the circle of plot holders and their guests by staging small artistic events. Another closely related problem is the accessibility of the allotments to people with disabilities. By analysing the actual and potential adaptations of allotments, the organisers looked into such issues as navigation for the blind (typhlographs, or tactile indicators) and architectural barriers for wheelchair users (path widths, type of surface). Aware of the limited budgets of family allotments, they are initiating a dialogue with city authorities regarding possible funding for changes.¹²

For Slovak artist Oto Hudec, his allotment in Košice serves a dual function as a place to meet people and unwind, and a spontaneous exhibition space, a venue for informal artistic residencies. In the 2022 We Are The Garden art project, the little house in his allotment became the focus of a narrative about the future in an era of accelerating climate change. The exhibition related a future story of a man and a little girl. Their daily struggle took place in extreme conditions: high temperatures, dusty and unbreathable air. Their “escape capsule” was a replica of the artist’s allotment house.¹³ The structure with a connected greenhouse provided a starting point for the fictional account of an endeavour to create a closed ecosystem: plants in the greenhouse were supposed to produce oxygen for the people living in the house, while also providing them with food, and the carbon dioxide exhaled by humans would in turn keep the plants alive.

The artist used art to internationalise the peculiar aesthetic of Central European allotments. Presented in Italy, the project, aside from its message regarding our close coexistence with nature, symbolically transferred the aesthetics of peripheral areas of an Eastern Slovak city to a Mediterranean metropolis, Rome.¹⁴ Oto Hudec created a prototype ecotone, adapting an allotment which, never losing its primary function as a site of recreation and the growing of fruit and vegetables – simultaneously becomes a platform for debate on the quality of life and the natural environment, and acquires a para‑institutional artistic significance in a setting that, though modest in material terms, is relationally international.

Another para‑institutional allotment was founded by Jakub Jastrubczak and Małgorzata Mazur in Szczecin. Its name, CentrumCentrum, is an ironic reference to the cosiness and peripheral situation of the plot itself within the city and the image of Szczecin as a city which only recently has began to aspire to a prominent place in the Polish art world. It is a space where art intertwines with daily life in the allotments. The “institution” is known for its experimentation aimed to build a symbolic capital without significant funding. For instance, it introduced its own currency in the form of sixty‑six gold ingots (made of paper and painted gold). The ingots constituted the capital of CentrumCentrum and were exchangeable for activities supporting the initiative.¹⁵

Critical perception of public space

The industrialisation and urban sprawl that came in the nineteenth century were reflected in increasingly radical concepts in the following century. “We must invent and rebuild the Futurist city like an immense and tumultuous shipyard, agile, mobile and dynamic in every detail; and the Futurist house must be like a gigantic machine,” Antonio Sant’Elia wrote in 1914.¹⁶ His sketches depicted rows of tall buildings and elaborate infrastructure, and among these the dynamic movement of vehicles on the sea, on land and in the air. The flamboyance of the vision of La Città Nuova was the inspiration behind Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis (1927). In the director’s view, the awe‑inspiring concentration of life and the emerging technological possibilities, the territorial expansion of the city and its upward (tower blocks, flyovers) and downward (underground, sewers, subterranean factories) expansion added up to the aesthetic of dystopian urban social order. In Metropolis, there were two castes coexisting in separate “worlds”: one on the surface, privileged, mobile and prosperous, and one underground – enslaved, unseen, accumulated.

At the 1939 New York World’s Fair, General Motors presented Futurama, a vision of the city of the future by Norman Bel Geddes. The impressive model contained rows of buildings surrounded by trees and multi‑lane urban motorways packed with thousands of cars, without any public transport.¹⁷ It was another step taken by the automotive industry and other related industries towards redefining what a street was and who it was to be used by.

A space traditionally accessible to all, the streets now privileged car drivers. Pedestrians were expected to give way, step to the side of the road and refrain from crossing the road in undesignated places to allow motorists to travel freely and fast. This radical revolution in the perception of a space crucial to the functioning of the city occurred swiftly and successfully.

A year before General Motors presented Futurama, Firestone Tires, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum and Mack Truck set up a holding company to purchase local transport businesses and carried out a policy aimed at closing tram routes in favour of buses.¹⁸ Their efforts culminated in the passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act, signed by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. It truly was a major decision – the new motorway system was intended to cover the entire continental United States, without being integrated with the existing rail network. To prevent cars from becoming stuck in urban bottlenecks, more “urban motorways” were constructed, with no pedestrian crossings of any kind for many kilometres. These new material barriers to free exchange disrupted the existing urban structure as well as social and economic relations.

Vast spaces designated for infrastructure turned into sites for the expression of diverse street art movements. Artists uncovered the potential for their exploration, using concrete walls as a communication tool allowing for an exchange of styles and aesthetics among various individuals and groups seeking to assert their presence. Actions affecting elements of infrastructure (first of all the illegal ones) were disapproved of by the organisations that managed them or local authorities. The high‑speed process of creating cultural norms in an era of individual transportation assumed a modernist “purity” of these structures and, consequently, anonymity of spaces produced to near‑identical designs thousands of times across the globe. Meanwhile, research has demonstrated that spaces which are not uniform but have a power of attraction positively affect the quality of life in estates,¹⁹ for example, they contribute to traffic safety. This relationship has laid foundation for the Asphalt Art Initiative²⁰ that provides funds for the design of unique and expressive surfaces at crossroads. It aims for an unconventional development of paths and crossings in a way that is intuitive rather than categorical, to suggest an optimal organisation of the flow of vehicles and people.

The promotion of cars as the dominant means of transport was not without impact on American cities and led to their suburbanisation – the sprawl of cities towards the suburbs. A house in one of the mass housing developments built to much the same patterns by Levitt & Sons and the like quickly became a sign of belonging to middle‑class and having a successful life. Edge cities (urban satellites fulfilling business, commercial and recreational functions) began to crop up around suburbia, portrayed by American journalist Joel Garreau in a series of articles.²¹ They became witnesses to more dynamic interactions than the historically and geographically defined central areas.

These processes disturbed the functioning of entire cities, their biggest problem now being car journeys made every morning by suburban residents going to the city centre that was losing its prestige at an increasing speed and accumulated social tensions – and their returns each afternoon.

One response to this challenge was to follow the example of Paris’s prefect Georges‑Eugène Haussmann who, between 1852 and 1870, carried out a scheme that involved constructing a network of radial streets and boulevards while demolishing much of the city’s medieval architecture – potential concentration sites for future Communards. Similar changes were to be introduced in some of America’s oldest cities, including New York, which, according to Rem Koolhaas, gets its specificity from material substance – understood as the plan, infrastructure, architecture and population. Rem Koolhaas used the phrase “Culture of Congestion”²² to describe it. In the 1950s, a network of roads was to be constructed and “slums” (this propaganda term covered both valuable frontage buildings and those that actually required fundamental changes) demolished to make New York City’s centre functional.

Jane Jacobs, the author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a journalist and activist, opposed this idea. In her texts, she revealed the way a new shape of the city was imposed on residents and deconstructed the associated rhetoric. Jane Jacobs and critics associated with the New Urbanism movement pointed out that functionalism failed to account for the social costs associated with the redevelopment of neighbourhoods, thus harming many while empowering few.²³ In Life Between Buildings, Jan Gehl,²⁴ a co‑initiator of Copenhagen’s historic centre preservation policy, places stress on “restoring streets” to stimulate direct human interaction. His criticism is directed at modernism as he believes that it fails to give sufficient attention to human psychology and social issues in the process of designing buildings and public spaces.²⁵ For Steen Eiler Rasmussen, city designers are the stage managers of everyday life: “The architect is a sort of theatrical producer, the man who plans the setting for our lives.”²⁶

Fortunately, critical architects do not have a monopoly on chipping away at the paradigm of speed. Diverse performative events can point at an alternative to the norm of rapidity. The dominance of motor traffic in global cities was challenged by Reclaim the Streets (RTS), a movement of artists and activists founded in 1991 in the United Kingdom. Taking inspiration from Hakim Bey’s concept of Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ),²⁷ understood as a mobile and temporary freedom space reappearing in various locations, Reclaim the Streets stage peaceful actions that “reclaim” streets by transforming them into impermanent spaces for play and art. The events – typically colourful and attractive to the eye – turn roadways into improvised playgrounds, eateries or music stages. The anarchistic and astonishing nature of these actions highlights the question of who owns the street and the city, and often cause tension in contact with law enforcement. Nevertheless, actions which are announced and legal also offer a critical perspective on spatial and social relations in the city. A good case in point is the Berlin Love Parade, a major event in the period from 1989 to 2010. It modified the perception of the city, effecting a change in its daily rhythm and opening up the spaces ordinarily used only by cars. It created an opportunity to see whether, and how, this space could be used in a different fashion in a carnival‑like dispersed atmosphere and during the preparations stage before the event.

Spatial recycling

Tobias Rapp²⁸ points out that the rise of techno culture was linked to the city’s spatial structure and the adaptation of many vacant and semi‑vacant buildings to serve as official or underground clubs. It was them that provided “fuel” to spectacular street demonstrations. A similar thing happened in Poland, especially in Łódź where the Freedom Parade was held annually between 1997 and 2002 (revived in 2022). This vibrant carnival offered mass street entertainment as a transitory escape from a reality of unemployment and uncertainty. The Freedom Parade was supported by small initiatives, such as the New Alcatraz Underground²⁹ and many other venues, including those operating on an unofficial basis. Also typical of the 1990s were spontaneously staged low‑cost “underground” events and gigs, for example the Hospital Unit; a permanent location for these ephemeral events was the partially enclosed pedestrian underpass beneath Pomorska Street in Łódź. It took several decades³⁰ for the Clinical and Diagnostic Centre of the Medical University to be completed, eventually giving the subway a purpose to fulfil. The space on the border between the vast construction site of an unused hospital and the “Morwa” Family Allotments – unfrequented in the evenings – proved a convenient location for people involved in the Łódź music underground,³¹ not likely to come into conflict with other groups and tolerated by law enforcement.³²

Reinvigorating redundant spaces that seem, at first sight, to be devoid of the potential for constructive action from the perspective of most urban stakeholders, is one of the characteristic features of artistic communities. Some of those practices result in the development of an institutional framework for activity. In Košice, Slovakia, artists began repurposing local heat plants. Initially used for technological purposes, the structures only housed basic transmission facilities after the transmission grid had been modernised. This meant that there were huge high‑ceilinged rooms (many with a floor area of more than 100 square meters) in the buildings left vacant; they were sublet and converted into studios – first of all by artists from the Faculty of Arts at the Technical University of Košice. In 2009, this local practice inspired the team developing an application for the European Capital of Culture Košice 2013 to adapt former heat plants for the SPOTs project that involved establishing cultural institutions in districts located far from the city centre. Výmenníky (vymenniky.sk) is an institution born out of this project, now operating in seven different locations across Košice and planning on expanding.

Apart from the global migration trend towards large urban areas, a parallel phenomenon is observed, that of shrinking cities grappling with considerable depopulation and a marked decline in population density. It affects specific cities in developed as well as developing countries and is usually a consequence of a rapid deterioration in the living standard of their inhabitants – most often following an economic crisis (deindustrialisation), an ecological one or one sparked off by burdensome environs. Thomas J. Sugrue³³ provided a graphic example of a shrinking city – Detroit, demonstrating that its desolation was a result of many unresolved social problems brought about by production being offshored, on a global scale, from wealthier to lower‑cost countries. The fact that the flexibility showed by members of artistic communities in the development of all sorts of spaces can be a socio‑economic stimulus for shrinking cities motivates institutions and city authorities to come up with various forms of support for such processes. This applies to artistic zones or entire districts; the principles of their creation and the vision of success (unfortunately, this is often controlled gentrification) vary from state to state and depend on their policies and models of supporting (or nor) culture.³⁴

A European city that faced a particularly massive decline in population in the 1990s was Leipzig (Germany). The efforts made to revitalise this city have been the subject of numerous studies which underline the prominent role of non‑governmental entities and local initiatives.³⁵ HausHalten e.V. is among the best‑known associations active in the western districts of Leipzig, affected by problem of vacant buildings. Besides running a watchdog program, the association also coordinates the AusBauHaus (Self‑Adaptation House) project aimed to provide long‑term, yet flexible, rental opportunities directly between property owners and tenants. Tenants receive a large living space for individual adaptation with renovation costs included in the rent, which allows for the rent to remain low and an adequate contribution to be made to the upkeep of the whole building (not just the particular space). Landlords can improve the condition of the building without investing their own funds.³⁶ Many of the spaces included in the programme serve as art studios and galleries. A significant number of them are located in historical residential buildings. Visitors to such galleries and people observing them online are given the opportunity to discover spaces previously closed and (often provisionally) secured, excluded from city life. The slow pace of the entire process is beneficial for artists who would not, otherwise, have sufficient financial resources for a better lease or a quick renovation. Basing on their own creativity, hard work and dedication, they gradually adapt the space to their activities, opening up previously inaccessible or marginal areas with a potentially powerful city‑building function.

Summary

The examples discussed here suggest that artistic activities have the potential to stimulate changes in how spaces are perceived as well as in their actual reconfiguration. Unconventional use of space within the framework of artistic practices offers a chance to experience it in a different way and triggers discussion about a possible change of norms. Still, not every idea for an alteration of socio‑spatial relations ends in success. The first Audioriver Festival that took place in 2024 in Łódź was one such “failed test.” The organisers, together with the city authorities, decided on the historical park in Zdrowie as the site for the festival. A separate ticketed zone was to be located near the graves of victims of the 1905–1908 revolution, in the immediate vicinity of the Łódź Zoo. If it had been situated there, a significant portion of one of the city’s largest and most popular recreational spaces would have to be closed down – during the peak of the summer holiday season. Peace of the memorial site, animal welfare and the risk of the park being devastated – all these issues emerged during a heated debate which largely played out on the social media sites. It prompted the authorities and organisers to change the location to a less controversial one. At the same time, this demonstrated the value of the park and reinforced or even instilled in residents the need to protect the place and preserve its egalitarian character.

Richard Sennett points out that humans are more successful when it comes to building walls than making ecotones. Catalysing change through artistic practices can help stimulate the development or regeneration of cities rising to new challenges. The dismantling of old divisions along with ecotonisation which combines diverse functions and people to produce hybrid spatial‑functional solutions, can create favourable conditions for a broader implementation of the innovations the city needs.