Together with the curators of A Perfect Day we have created big and small events before the big opening on february 10th in the city of Amsterdam in collaboration with the American Book Centre, Concerto, 1,000 drawings, Stadsherstel, Kuvva a.o. We will keep you informed on this site and through facebook and twitter about the exact dates.

Thursday the 26th of January, 1000 Drawings and A Perfect Day organize 1000 Frames, a collective animation drawing event for charity. Six artists have prepared the first layers of an animation that will be completed by the visitors. The animation and drawings will be shown at the A Perfect Day exhibition in the Westergasfabriek; and afterwards the drawings will be sold at the next 1000 Drawings event. With music, drinks, interviews, animation-screenings and more.

The rest of this post is in Dutch

Op donderdag 26 januari organiseren 1000 Drawings en A Perfect Day ’1000 Frames’ in de Posthoornkerk (Haarlemmerstraat 126A van 20.00 – 23.00 uur). Kom langs om samen de frames af te maken, in te kleuren, en zo mee te doen aan een collectief animatieproject. Zes animatoren, waaronder Marcel de Vries, Frank Hoen, Yoko Heiligers, Jay Sunsmith, Floor Rieder en Tim Faber hebben een eerste opzet gemaakt. Aan de bezoekers nu de taak om de animatie af te tekenen.

Met drankjes, vloerverwarming en muziek van Viral Radio.

De hele animatie is te zien tijdens A Perfect Day – Tekenshow; de tekeningen worden verkocht voor het goede doel op de volgende editie van 1000 Drawings. Met dank aan Stadsherstel!

PROGRAMMA
19.30 Inloop
20.00 Aanvang + inleiding
20.30 – 22.30 Zelf tekenen

Verder ook interviews met illustratoren, animatiefilms en meer.

Laat weten dat je komt via de  facebookpagina van het event.

LOCATIE
Posthoornkerk, Haarlemmerstraat 124, Amsterdam (dichtbij CS)

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Over A Perfect Day: 
A Perfect Day Tekenshow is een 14-daagse internationale tentoonstelling van tekeningen met tekst in de Westergasfabriek. Met goedgemutste, hier en daar ontregelende en bovenal grappige tekeningen over alledaagse gemoedstoestanden. Van 10 t/m 24 februari in de Westergasfabriek te Amsterdam. Met David Shrigley, Gummbah, Raymond Pettibon en vele anderen.

www.aperfectday.info
www.facebook.com/tekenshow

Over 1000 Drawings:
1000 Drawings verzamelt duizenden tekeningen op A5, van beroemde kunstenaars, amateurs, kinderen – alles is welkom. We zijn ervan overtuigd dat het niet uitmaakt wie je bent: iedereen kan tekenen, verschil maken en bijdragen aan het goede doel met culturele en artistieke middelen.

www.1000drawingsamsterdam.nl
www.facebook.com/1000DrawingsAmsterdam

Met dank aan Stadsherstel - www.stadsherstel.nl

Foam, the Amsterdam based but omnipresent photography museum, is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. For this occasion, Foam has created ‘What’s Next?’, a project exploring the future of photography. Foam has posed the question of ‘what’s next?’ throughout this anniversary year to a variety of people in a variety of locations.

Last March Non-fiction’s Michiel van Iersel moderated a panel discussion on ‘the ideal art (photography) institution’, critically re-examining the pillars of present-day museums: the building, the collection, the curator and the role of artists and new communication tools. Friday December 2, he will join four curators for another discussion on the future of the photography. The evening is in Dutch, but an English abstract will probably appear soon on the ‘What’s Next?’ website.

Curators’ Talk: The Future of the Photography Museum

(In Dutch)

Locatie: Foam
Datum: vrijdag 2 december 2011
Aanvang: 20.00 uur (zaal open: 19.45 uur)
Kaarten: € 8,00. Foam Supporters betalen € 5,00.
Voertaal: Nederlands

Naar aanleiding van de tentoonstelling The Future of the Photography Museumbespreekt Marcel Feil (adjunct directeur artistieke zaken, Foam) met drie curatoren hun visie op het maken van tentoonstellingen en de positie van het fotografiemuseum:

Leontine Coelewij, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Frits Gierstberg, Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam
Xander Karskens, De Hallen Haarlem
Michiel van Iersel, oprichter van Non-fiction | Office for Cultural Innovation, vertaalt zijn gedachten in een ‘spoken column’.

Reserveren
Kaarten kosten € 8,00. Supporters van Foam (Foam Fan, Club Foam) betalen € 5,00. Vanwege het beperkte aantal plekken raden we u aan tijdig te reserveren via foam[at]foam.org.

Foam Café
Vooraf en na het programma is het Foam Café geopend. Indien u vooraf wil dineren graag reserveren via: info@foamcafe.nl.
Let wel: op deze dag is Foam gesloten om 17:30 uur.

The Future of the Photography Museum
5 november – 7 december 2011

Voor The Future of the Photography Museum heeft Foam vier gastcuratoren uit het internationale culturele veld uitgenodigd om elk vanuit hun eigen visie invulling te geven op de vraag What’s Next?. Het resultaat is een intrigerende tentoonstelling met vier uitgesproken, soms zelfs provocatieve presentaties.

Dear friends, colleagues, neighbors and others,

This month Non-fiction is turning three and
we move into our new office on Museumplein.

We will celebrate this with a housewarming this friday, 11-11-’11.
You are cordially invited and feel free to bring friends.

We hope to see you on Friday from 18:00 hrs.

Best wishes,

Juha, Michiel, Boris, Adéla & Radna

“This acclaimed documentary traces the building of the Getty Center in Los Angeles, designed by Richard Meier and one of the most ambitious cultural undertakings of the twentieth century. Spanning fourteen years, from the early blueprints to the groundbreaking to the public opening of the Center in December 1997, the film takes viewers from California to a rock quarry in Italy where the Center’s signature travertine originated. The gathering of creative personalities needed to complete this monumental complex gave rise to conflict as well as consensus, to tension as well as resolution. Concert of Wills looks behind the scenes and chronicles intimate moments of success as well as frustration and heated debates.”

Information:
Date: Wednesday, 2 November
Introduction: 19:30 hrs
Start film: 20:00 hrs
Location: De Nieuwe Bibliotheek, Almere

More information on Casla website

Thierry W. Despont and Richard Meier discuss the pros and cons of carpet in art galleries. Clip taken from “Concert of Wills” Written and directed by Susan Froemke, Bob Eisenhardt, and Albert Maysles.

On the occasion of the national Day of Architecture on 30 September 2011 the Danish Network for Young Planners (Netværk for yngre planlæggere) invites Failed Architecture to Copenhagen. Started by Non-fiction in 2010 as a blog it has evolved into a series of debates at De Verdieping in Amsterdam and other cities. In Copenhagen we will discuss criteria (‘benchmarks’) for quality and failure in modernist housing estates in an international East/West perspective.

To make the event site-specific, Scandinavia’s second tallest housing complex Domus Vista (read more below) frames our “walkshop” and debate. Different stakeholders, marking the problem field, meet at the walkshop in Domus Vista’s high-rise and surroundings. We invite planners, residents, architects, journalists, politicians, etc. to test methods and discuss questions like:

• What is it that makes many people criticize modernist public housing estates as failed architecture?
• Is it because of physical, social or cultural conditions?
• Is the modernist ideal about educating and improving the people through urban planning and social engineering still relevant?

The walkshop (working while walking) opens up the debate in Domus Vista’s bankruptcy-threatened community-cum-shopping centre. International and Danish experts present their views on why housing estates from the post-war period are often regarded as failures and how this affects urban planning and regeneration. The Danish situation is put into perspective by experiences from the Balkans and Holland. Failed Architecture events have previously taken place in Amsterdam and Skopje. In the autumn FA moves to Sofia and Belgrade.

Programme September 30 @ Domus Vista (in English) 

16.00 – 16.15 – Introduction to the day’s programme, Failed Architecture and Domus Vista.
16.15 – 17.00 – Experimental walkshop, testing methods in Domus Vista and surroundings.
17.00 – 17.15 – Short break
17.15 – 17.45 – Presentation of questions and conclusions, produced by the walkshop. The different ‘actor groups’ present their viewpoints for each other and the experts.
17.45 – 18.00 – Short break
18.00 – 18.45 – Public debate, moderated by Michiel van Iersel (Non-fiction and founder of Failed Architecture), with presentations by  Ljubo Georgiev (Dutch/Bulgarian architect), Claus Bech-Danielsen (Head of Research at Centre of Housing Research, Professor mso, ph.d. Architect MAA at Danish Building Research Institute), Niels Bjørn (urbanist) and Signe Sophie Bøggild (architectural historian).
18.45 – 19.30 – Open mic, moderated by Michiel van Iersel.
19.45 – 22.00 – Balkan beats and refreshments.

When?
There is programme from 16.00 until 22.00. Since the event has two parts, you can either join us for the whole day or just participate in the debate, open for everybody. To sign up for the walkshop please visit NYP’s website (limited space).

Go to  event.

Where?
Domus Vista, Nordens Plads 4 2000 Frederiksberg Copenhagen.

Click here to see Domus Vista on the map.

More about the venue: Domus Vista 
Domus Vista is located in Copenhagen at Roskildevej in Frederiksberg and is with its 102 metres the tallest residential structure in Denmark and the second tallest residential building in Scandinavia. The tallest building is Turning Torso in Malmø, which was completed in 2005.The building was designed by architect Ole Hagen and was completed in 1969. It was built by builder Harald Simonsen, who also took part in the construction of Hostrups Have in Frederiksberg. Domus Vista has 30 floors and 470 apartments. The lower floors were originally a hotel with restaurant, banquet facilities and living rooms. The hotel was closed in early 1970s. Instead, the living room part of the building is now housing a shopping centre and a library. (Source: Wikipedia)

What would Diogenes have asked the people of Sinop if he were to be alive today? The most illustrious of the Cynic philosophers, Diogenes of Sinope (c. 404-323 B.C.E.) serves as the template for the Cynic sage in antiquity. He became notorious for his philosophical stunts such as carrying a lamp in the daytime, claiming to be looking for an honest man. Where would his light guide us today, what will it reveal?

Can this run down and abandoned truck be considered to symbolize or sum up the fate of Sinop’s heritage? Madly photogenic, overloaded with history and poetically appealing, but currently abused and neglected and with no clear plan for rehabilitation in sight. For the last four decades it has been standing on the same spot, next to the main building of Sinop’s old and abandoned prison. Will it ever be able to escape the physical and mental walls of a heritage site in a city that is obsessed with its own past? How can you built a future on a crumbling past and a politicized present?

Built in 1935, as is vaguely indicated on the facade, these dwarf buildings are older than most of Sinop’s citizen’s and have superseded the current life expectancy in Turkey, which for years has been hovering around 72 years. They sit on one of the corners of the city’s main street, like old men on a bench. However, in spite of their respectable age and prime location in the heart of the city, the buildings aren’t treated with the same respect as Sinop’s senior citizens are. These 76 year-olds have to work all day, are continuously exposed to harsh conditions and receive no (physical) treatment. Who will take care of these old guys? Or who is brave enough to stop their suffering?

Kitsch or classy? Fake facades cover up generic architecture, resembling some parts of Disneyland and Las Vegas’ infamous Strip. Or is it a praiseworthy attempt to adjust new buildings to their historical surroundings? Either way, the visual effect is dazzling. Elements of ancient temples collide with medieval brickwork, while billboards advertise the latest fashion trends. Impregnable fortress, tourist trap or consumerist church? People don’t seem to care. They get their haircut, eat their dürüm, talk to their friends on the phone, dissolve in the here and now. The old city walls protected the citizens from external threats. Their fake copies open the gates to our inner lust for harmless comfort.

The city crawls up the hill in an unnoticeable, but unstoppable pace. Ignoring the proven quality of the historic center, with its layered and interwoven structure, new construction is venturing out into vast unspoiled sloping grasslands that offer stunning views of the Black Sea. Luckily, this devastating sprawl will come to a halt, stopped by the cliffs that dive down into the sea 200 meters below. Only the majestic hawks that circle high above the peninsula will manage to escape the flood of generic suburbanism. Sinopians should climb up the hill, to the abandoned NATO base where once the Americans had their eyes on the USSR, and they should look down on their ancient city and see and acknowledge the uncontrolled growth of it. Be their own Big Brother and stop the enemy within.

The skyline of Sinop is dotted with holes. Empty plots and one story buildings are tucked in between high apartment blocks, waiting for redevelopment while real estate development is pushed out of the city center up the surrounding hills. Sinop is an ancient city that is afraid to become a modern metropolis, preferring suburban sprawl and rural life over high density and mixed living. Who owns the underutilized land and the dwarf buildings that stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their giant neighbors? And who is preventing these plots from redevelopment? Does someone own the air above them, the right to have an unobstructed view? Big Brother on the hill should tell the little children in the city to grow up.

Derelict buildings are everywhere, fragile wooden structures with shattered windows and metal plating, about to fall apart. But who owns them, who is using them, who is looking after them, is anyone even noticing theme? Cats have taken over. Gardens are savagely overgrown, starting to resemble an untouched Arcadia. Buildings stand idle, silent memory machines, cut off from the flow of daily life.  Elsewhere these buildings would have been listed, allowing them to start all over again as a private house, museum or monumental boutique hotel. In Sinop they’re orphans without a foster parents plan.

Ghosts from the past come out at night. Ruins that have been left to rot turn every street into a potential crime scene. Hardly visible, they seem to make a final attempt to catch our attention, one last breath before they drift away into dark oblivion. This coastal city needs urban divers and fishermen to rescue these structures from drowning, to lift them from the bottom of an ocean of generic architecture.

Read more about the project ‘Collecting the Future’.

Two of our projects are listed: De Verdieping, a temporary cultural project space in an abandoned printing plant which we started in 2009, and Tussen-ruimte (Remnant Spaces), an ongoing investigation with architect Jarrik Ouburg of the underutilized spaces (alleys, fire escapes, roof tops) in Amsterdam’s historic (and UNESCO protected) inner city that we want to re-activate with artistic and other interventions during Amsterdam’s year long celebration of the 400th anniversary of its canal area in 2013.

We have been invited to participate in an international forum, focusing on the role of the arts and culture in urban development, in the Turkish city of Sinop from September 7 – 18. Poetically named ‘Collecting the Future‘, the project takes place in an abandoned prison complex and aims to raise the awareness for local heritage (preservation) in a rapidly changing city with a complex history. Foreign urbanists, curators and artists will share their expertise with local experts and residents in a series of lectures, public discussions, publications, workshops and art projects.

We are planning to do a mapping project and walkshop, inviting local participants to visually mark historically and/or personally significant locations within the city. Combining tags, mobile phones with cameras and written notes, we will make a map that draws attention to hidden locations and objects – a favorite view of the city, a crime scene, a secret passage – and present it online and in a small scale exhibition. We will keep you updated during our stay. In the meantime you can get more information on the Collecting the Future website.

This project  is the extension of the 3rd Sinop International Biennial which has been realised last year and is supported by the EU. Project partners are AltArt from Romania, Felix Meritis from Netherland and Collabor.at from Austria. Nuova Icona from Italy, City Council Youth Assembly of Sinop, Sinop Young Businessmen Association as well as the Romanian Cultural Institute are the associates of the project.

Sinop
Sinop is situated on the northernmost point of the Black Sea coast of Turkey. The city has a population of 36,734 and dates from the 7th century BC. For thousands of years Sinop has been a strategic point in the cultural and trade systems of the Black Sea Region. The port of Sinop has been a host to many civilizations, including Bronze Age, Greek, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman. Although the city was an important centre for shipbuilding during the Ottoman period, it lost its function during the transformation of the empire.

In 1887 the historical dockyards were converted into a prison complex. As a result, the shipbuilding and commercial centre of the past became a prison town and was left to poverty. The geographical position of Sinop, on a foreland with only a single entry point, also contributed to the isolation of the city.

Because of its strategic location, Sinop had a US military base which closed in 1992. The irony is that the Americans were looking at Russia from their Sinop base for intelligence during the Cold War era, but at the same time Sinop is known as a rather leftist city in Turkey. In the 1980s coupe d’etat in Turkey many educated leftist and cultural people were imprisoned in the infamous Sinop prison that is now a museum and site of Collecting the Future and the Sinop Biennal or Sinopale held by the Istanbul based European Culture Society since 2006.

Sinop entered 20th century as an isolated place from the world. The isolation of the city created other problems such as economic recession, unemployment and migration of young people from the city. The main employment facility of its citizens was the NATO base. After the collapse of the eastern bloc there has been no need for the NATO base in Sinop, which made the economy even worse and the main employment area was closed. After a long period of isolation, Sinop is now in the opening up process.

Read more about the history and current situation of Sinop on Wikipedia

Michiel van Iersel, co-founder of Non-fiction, was asked (and happily agreed) to join the so-called Stad-Forum, which was recently established by the City of Amsterdam as an advisory board, think tank and platform for debate focusing on urban developments and planning issues within the Amsterdam metropolitan area.

The Stad-Forum consists of three key members and a circle of twelve additional members, each with a different background, ranging from entrepreneurs and property developers to scholars, curators and artists. Michiel will focus on such topics as urban regeneration and temporary use of vacant spaces, the role of new and mobile media in the way we perceive and shape our cities and heritage and innovation.

The key members are Karin Laglas (Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at Delft University of Technology), Liesbeth Jansen (Advisor on Redevelopment, Cultural Heritage and Creative Economy) and Wouter Veldhuis (urban designer/architect & partner with MUST).

The aim of Stad-Forum is to identify the most pressing issues and developments that shape the future (appearance) of Amsterdam, facilitate a dialogue between the various stakeholders, and advise the City Council and college of Aldermen on future policy.

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Stad-Forum is linked to The Department of Physical Planning (Dienst Ruimtelijke Ordening, or DRO), one of the City of Amsterdam’s centralized services that focuses on the organization and design of an attractive and spatially coherent city.

From September onwards Stad-Forum will actively address issues of contemporary urban life through public and interdisciplinary programs. Its goal is the exploration of new and innovative ideas, public engagement, and ultimately the creation of progressive solutions for life in Amsterdam.

The first public appearance of Stad-Forum will be at PICNIC Festival 2011.

Visit the website of Stad-Forum for more information (in Dutch only)

You can follow Stad-Forum on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

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