Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad: Interplay Part I

This series of seminars/workshops start by asking the question, 'how is space produced?'

Focusing on notions of the use of public space, both individually and communally, and forms of recreation in both the public and private spheres of the area,

The workshops will aim to gather and pool knowledge and experiences from the group in order to formulate areas of investigation.

The workshops will use methods of collaborative research - consisting of group discussions, field research, photography, interviewing, collective decision making, design and production.

Looking at how research can be translated into design, and how design can shape space. Space shaping events initiated by the group could include anything from public cooking to furniture building to public interventions from performance to music/radio broadcast, offering/trying out different services to the public and seeing what impact these temporary interruptions have. Bahbak will facilitate and encourage the skills and ambitious of the group in terms of what happens and how.

The CWC Unit 2 topics to cover:
• Problem solving.
• Working in a team.
• Creative thinking.
• Interview skills (interviewing others)

Unit 2 topics to explored:
• Setting your Target
• Managing a project
• Dealing with conflict (if one arises)

The initial workshops will be formative and will aim to extract experiences from students about their immediate social and geographical environment with a focus on Church street and neighbouring areas. As the group start to identify the areas of investigation, invited external collaborators, experts etc will be brought into the project to develop specifics strands.

Area of initial investigation:
a) Your Biography by Others - This will be both fun and insightful in the understanding of the main focus of these workshops - social relations and the public realm.
b) Politics of Products - A workshop about the cultural value and politics of products that are owned and present at the session.
c) Groups work in the form of either recalling/mapping or re-enacting social scenarios based on objects identified by the group as "important".