FerroForum, photograph by Ena Kukić
AFTERLIVES
Industrial Spaces and Acts of Collectivity
155.508 Design of Specialised Topics
Convened by Ena Kukić
The studio investigates the persistence of industrial heritage beyond its original function, approaching former sites of production as active repositories of collective memory and identity. Grounded in the study of the FerroForum in Esch-sur-Alzette (Luxembourg)—a cultural centre located in a former steelworks workshop—the course explores how industrial sites can be transformed into living infrastructures that sustain both material practices and communal narratives.
Afterlives frames the FerroForum within a broader context of post-industrial transformation, examining how different regimes of production give rise to distinct modes of collectivity. Students will consider the steelworks as a site of industrial labor and shared social organization, and contrast this with the forms of collective engagement produced today through cultural practice and voluntary participation. Through this comparison, they will develop a critical and sensorial understanding of industrial spaces as memoryscapes — spatial frameworks in which material traces and social histories intersect.
The course begins with the collective construction of a large-scale model of the FerroForum building, conceived as a kulisse — a spatial stage for analysis and speculation. Within this shared framework, students will test and iterate artistic intervention proposals while critically examining the conditions that allow FerroForum to function as a living heritage site. These speculative exercises will culminate in a field excursion in May, during which the class will work in situ, engaging directly with local actors, the building’s spatial reality, and its ongoing life. This encounter will allow students to understand how industrial heritage is not simply given, but continuously produced through community involvement, modes of care, knowledge transmission, and programmatic coding — and how artistic practice can critically intervene in these conditions.