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About
News, updates and jet-lagged commentary on my work as creative director, writer and consultant specialising in design, urbanism, open source methodologies, and other topics that seemed like a good idea at the time.
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Urban Play
Urban Play is a project I created for the city of Amsterdam in collaboration with Droog Design, which explores open approaches to design and creativity in the city.
Urban Play is a project in two parts: the exhibition and the design route.
The Exhibition
The Urban Play exhibition provides a global overview of urban design interventions done outside of the formal channels of institutions, commissions and urban planning in cities around the world. Some refer to it as guerrilla design or “3D Graffiti”, but this surge of urban creativity – from billboards that are visually remixed, to streetscapes which are morphed into theatrical areas in the middle of the night – is where creative expression in the city becomes physical, literally transforming cities around the world.
Featuring an unparalleled collection of work from 18 of the world’s most talented urban interventionists curated by yours truly, the exhibition explores how this latest wave of interaction with the urban landscape is challenging the rules of engagement between citizens and sanctioned urban creative expression – moreover, how it is changing the language of creativity in the city. While some social attitudes have previously dismissed urban intervention as a form of vandalism, at the heart of this current wave of DIY urban design is in fact a deeply sophisticated movement driven by artists and designers who want to expand our relationship between creativity and the city. Done without permission or commissions, the vast range of work on display represents the intersection of the latest genre of street art and the beginnings of open source urban design. The exhibited artists are:
- Arno Piroud
- CutUp Collective
- Gilberto Esparza
- Graffiti Research Lab
- Jason Eppink
- Ji Lee
- Joshua Allen Harris
- Leon Reid IV
- Mark Jenkins
- Office for Subversive Architecture
- Posterchild
- Rebar
- Roadsworth
- SpY
- TheGreenEyl
- Till Bay (Windowzoo)
- Truthtag
- You are Beautiful
The Route
Droog Design and I have assembled a team of some of the most innovative designers and architects from around the world to create 12 newly designed interventions, tools, toys and objects that are temporarily placed along a route on the central IJ-riverfront in Amsterdam. Reversing the traditional approach to urban design, in which objects and areas are created explicitly to discourage public interaction and intervention, this collection of objects will be created to encourage interaction and physical engagement by the public.
Urban Play poses the question that we hear so much about the “creative city”, but when to we actually get to see it in action?
Inhabitants and visitors who come across the installed elements of Urban Play along the route are challenged to bring the objects to their next level.
Through the creative intervention and input by the city’s residents, this experiment in urban design begins raising political and social questions for the city itself. How much tolerance does a city have for its residents to interact with the physical city? Does it support their creative input and a direct involvement in its design? Does Urban Play ultimately become a period of amnesty for the city’s residents to play with and in the urban landscape? Which design proposals will the city authorities allow, and which ones will be blocked – and what does this say about the freedom of the city’s residents to be creative in their own town, and who makes those decisions?
Credits
Concept Creator and Curator Scott Burnham / Participants – Exhibition Arno Piroud [FR], Barsky Brothers [SE], CutUp Collective [GB], Gilberto Esparza [MX], Graffiti Research Lab [US], Jason Eppink [US], Ji Lee [KR], Joshua Allen Harris [US], Mark Jenkins [US], Leon Reid IV [US], Office for Subversive Architecture [GB, DE, AT], Posterchild [CA], Rebar [US], Roadsworth [CA], SpY [ES], TheGreenEyl [DE], Truthtag (Krystian Truth Czaplicki) [PL]; Till Bay (Windowzoo) [DE], You are Beautiful [US] / Participants – Route Designo Patagonia [AR], Gunjan Gupta [IN), Jan Konings [NL], Ji Lee [KR], Kwangho Lee [KR], Martí Guixé [ES], Martin Ruiz Azua [ES], NL Architects [NL], Nothing Design Group [KR], Office for Subversive Architecture [GB, DE, AT], Rebar [US], Sagmeister Inc. [US] / Exhibition and Communication Design Thonik / Production Maaika Gottschal / Production Assistant Joep Pingen, Laura Schon
