Collective residencies / URBAN PLANNING / Olot
NEGIN ARMIOUN
From Friday, 19 January 2018 to Wednesday, 31 January 2018
Bio
Negin is a feminist architect and researcher from Iran who’s studying master of sustainable architecture at Tampere University of Technology, Finland. In her designs and articles, she tries to combine gender studies and social sciences with architecture and look at urban planning and design from a feminist point of view. She is currently working on the new ways of participatory urban planning to get involved the excluded groups of people from decision making process and give “the others” a voice and a tool to be heard. She has also worked on challenging the gender and spatial binaries such as public/private with a feminist perspective.
Project
In Faber, Negin plans to use the multi-disciplinary atmosphere to discuss about possible/impossible equal cities and how certain groups of people have been excluded from public spaces and how it can be changed toward a more inclusive urban space. She also arranges a new spatial setting to challenge publicness/privateness for residents in Faber. She will use the results of discussions and spatial experience for her master thesis about new approach of engagement in designing the living space/neighborhood/town/city toward a more equal society.
Beyond an experience
Life is a unique opportunity, isn’t it? And I’m always seeking for new and different experiences to enrich my life! Specially those kinds of experiences which can widen my perspective. Faber seemed to be one of them with offering multi-disciplinary atmosphere around a specific issue in urban planning, when I applied for. However, when I arrived at Faber, Olot and spent a few days here, it appeared as something more than an experience. Not only staffs and director of Faber are so enthusiastic about what they do more than just a responsibility, not only trips and meetings are so energetic more than just a part of the residency plan, not only other residents are so wonderful accompanies in all our discussions more than just residents, but also Olot itself, has more to offer than just a middle-size town. It gave me the opportunity to think about phenomenology of independency discourse in public sphere while walking in the streets. The streets where are taken over by symbols, flags and lights of being. I felt I’m at that point of time and place in the history which would be unforgettable. I felt myself as a part of all the dreamers who are trying hard to build the future. I felt myself green like the landscapes, blue like the sky and yellow like the streets.