Every city is part of a network shaped by transnational connections and specific zones that modulate the exchanges between it and the rest of the world. At such nodes, the effects of migratory movements and the globalized exchange of goods and services become visible, and there political changes can be found immediately looming. In this series of three public workshops (FEBRUARY 17, MARCH 9, and MARCH 13, 2014) participants joined Tracings Spaces (MAK Center architect-in-residence Michael Hieslmair and Michael Zinganel), Place It! (James Rojas), and urbanist Kyong Park to trace and depict individual experiences linked to travel and migration histories.
These workshops highlighted urban patterns and complemented them with political reflection in the form of comic drawings. Visitors were asked to come by the Mackey Apartments and talk about their mobility and/or migration experiences. Or, more simply, answer the question “How did you get here/there?” Over the length of the workshops, they then used these answers to create a three-dimensional map inside one of the garages at the Mackey Apartments, a walkable globe permeated by a network of paths, with Los Angeles as its center.
About Tracing Spaces
Michael Hieslmair and Michael Zinganel live and work as artists, curators and writers in Vienna. Since 2005, they collaborate for research and art projects about the impact of transnational mobility, migration and tourism on cultural change in urban, suburban and rural agglomerations. In 2012, they founded Tracing Spaces, a platform for interdisciplinary research projects, events and publications.
About Place It!
Founder James Rojas lives in Los Angeles, holds an MA in City Planning and an MS in Architecture Studies from MIT. He works as a city and transportation planner, and is the founder of the Latino Urban Forum, a non-profit dedicated to increasing awareness of planning and design issues facing low-income Latinos. He has written and lectured extensively about how culture and immigration are transforming the American front yard and landscape, and, through Place It!, has organized an impressive number of on-site model installations and interactive workshops.
About Kyong Park
He is involved in a wide range of works on Public Culture, including research, documentation, and representations focused on the urban landscapes that delineate the economic, political and cultural borders and territories of the contemporary social geography. Working in visual arts, architecture, theory and curatorial practices, Park incorporates text, photography, video, installation and new media into his works, a practice that is rooted in research, participation and activism in public spaces.
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Final Projects: Group XXXVI - SMILE
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