'The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City', Diego Rivera, 1931
Sites of Labour draws from the new forms of memorialization practice that look toward research and investigative processes as building blocks of a memorial in becoming. As an art-based research project, the focus of Sites of Labour is not just on a (material) place of memorialization, nor a fixed solution, but also on a changing, momentary, and fluid space that enables memory to become a presence in the every-day life. The memorial thus is a discursive sight of socialization of knowledge, addressing the future as much as the past. The final form of the memorial developed during the semester will emerge from these premises.
The main research and production focus will be the investigation of dynamic relationships between KZ Außenlager Aflenz and Graz during WWII, focusing on the interrelations between war, labour, and the capitalist mode of production then and now. The main outcomes of the studio project will be a contribution to the memorial production in Aflenz and an exhibition in Graz.
Existing research material, including guest lectures, talks, film and video screenings, reading groups, and site visits will highlight both historical WWII and current discussions related to the war as a method of resolving capitalist crisis. Employment of various devices, such as drawing, photography, archiving, mapping, and site writing will be used as the methods of finding the (spatial) articulation of a memorial in becoming.
The master studio will be divided in three parts: research (including a landscape archeology survey), exhibition concept development and execution (for the exhibition in the framework of steirischer herbst), and a memorial production (landscape design based on the research).
Guest lectures at the course will include sessions with archeologist Ana Bezić, philosopher Petar Milat, historian Bernard Perz, filmmaker Dan Oki, and artists Andrea Palašti and Adriá Juliá.
Courses tied to the studio project:
Art and Social, lecturer Lidija Krienzer-Radojevic
Current Trends in Architecture, lecturer Daniel Gethmann
The first session of the course is Tuesday, March 13th 11:00 – 13:00 Masterstudio ATDG114!