On Wednesday 22nd November Ben Stringer (DS12), will participate in the Hyper Rural: The End of Urbanisam, international symposium at the Manchester Metropolitan University, as a part of the Designing the Future Rural; imagining the future rural landscapes, settlements & economies panel, alongside Stefan Petermann (OMA/OSA) and Dr Rosemary Shirley (Art Deptartment, MMU).
The symposium is partly intended as a response to the outcomes of two recent publications and research projects (under). It also aims to document the emergence of a radical new programme of art and agriculture and critical rural arts practices which, in turn, propose a cultural reframing of agriculture and rural development in the post-agricultural era. Including the New Creative Rural Economies initiative (and a conference proposed for 2018) which will further outline a wider strategic role for art, architecture, digital design and the cultural sector in support of rural regeneration and the Government’s (post-Brexit) Industrial Strategy.
Rem Koolhaas’ ‘The Countryside’ – Charles Jencks Award lecture presentation at RIBA in London, 20th December 2012. Above is one of the main slides where Koolhaas contrasts what he describes as the increasing hyper-Cartesian re(de)formation of the countryside, with what he also views as the regressive tendencies of the discourse of urbanism*, and the increasing whimsicality and detachment of some urban public art, architecture and design.
“Our current preoccupation with the city alone is highly irresponsible.. The countryside is now more volatile that the most accelerated city”
” Architects are attracted by contradictions ..we must also look to new ideas and new ways of thinking.. particularly when the old ways of thinking and working beginning to break down.. [at] OMA we look to the countryside and what is happening there is extraordinary..” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y97yXB82nWc
The New Creative Rural Economies report. The symposium is also proposed as a platform and a response to the Littoral Arts Trust’s publication; The New Creative Rural Economies report (2018).
“What the BSE and FMD (Foot and Mouth) disasters have shown us is that agriculture and the rural are now also important cultural responsibilities and arenas and, as such, they also represent urgent new critical spheres for artists, digital media, architects, designers and cultural policy discourse.”
The symposium runs from Tuesday 21st to Wednesday 22nd November.
To book tickets: https://www.landscapeinstitute.org/event/hyper-rural-symposium/