Civic Ecology Commons

The lecture is the first event in the Design for Cultural Commons series organised by Tornage Khonsari , course leader of MA Design for Cultural Commons.

Speakers:

Mothiur Rahman: From Property to Place
If the meaning of “economy” is in oikos meaning “household”, and nomia meaning “management”, what could be explored by giving the imaginary a spatial twist by re-conceiving “economy” as a “spatial unit of household-management”? In considering how a “house” becomes a “home” through bodies and their subjectivities negotiating a prescribed space over time, the presentation will explore how, when we perform “practices of relationship” within a space, meaning is generated that helps co-create a sense of place. The practice of Community Chartering is one way in which the “civic space” of our built and natural environment can be re-envisioned as “civic places” of meaning and value.

Andreas Lang: Temporary use
R-URBAN is a bottom-up strategy that explores the possibilities of enhancing the capacity of urban resilience by introducing a network of resident-run facilities to create complementarities between key fields of activity (economy, housing, urban agriculture, culture). R-Urban initiates locally closed ecological cycles that will support the emergence of alternative models of living, producing and consuming between the urban and the rural

Torange Khonsari: Communal Garden and the Liminal City
Community gardens are highly regarded by citizens and local authorities as an asset to the fabric of the city and its citizens. They negotiate a space between the informal arena of everyday life and the formal regulated realm of the state. The in-between space they construct, I will refer to as liminal (Turner,1979), where the case study of Abbey Gardens has become a space for civic action. This talk will outline the power relations between the formal state and informal everyday life of a garden and its subsequent agency towards the role it plays within the formation of liminal civic places in our neighbourhoods.

The Commons discourse is informed by an idea, which has been around for hundreds of years. In a contemporary context of much inequality, the Commons discourse introduces models of sharing. The Commons are about the assets that belong to everyone, forming resources that should benefit all, rather than being enclosed to just a few. The current debate revolves around how these shared assets are created, governed, used and distributed without overuse and abuse.

If you are a teacher who would like to arrange a group booking for your school or college students, please contact Suman at s.uddin@londonmet.ac.uk.  For internal reference only: XX050, XX051, XX005, XX011