Paris Galaxies solo show, 2012.
Parsons School Paris, 14 rue Letellier 75015 Paris.
Research-exhibition with urban sociology student (Critical Theory dpt lead by Vivian Sky Rebherg).
Conference given inside the installation during the Symposium Scaling-Up (Art, Design, Economy) organized in collaboration with ACTE (Art, Creation, Theory, AEsthetics) Institute, Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne University, during the Designers’ Days 2012.
All research episods on Paris Galaxies lab website: parisgalaxies.net
Installation elements: bench, green carpet, night blue paint; diagram Paris Galaxy Conceptual Model; article Paris Galaxy Inc., a conceptual model and holistic strategy toward envisioning urban development, Parsons Journal For Information Mapping, Volume IV, Issue #1, 2012; diagram Polygon Past-Track; projection of a movie of Bulle Poético-Spéculative (RBW’s photographic installation, 2001); diagram Paris Galaxy Future Vision; 4 groups of students’ research files.
Press file extract:
Art-based research work-in-progress
Paris Galaxies is a conceptual framework designed by RBW in the LIID Future Lab to address the Greater Paris transformation in a holistic, creative and non-conventional manner. Designing and building upon a diagram inspired by astrophysics graphic solutions which enable to visualize the multi-dimensionality and complexity of the city, RBW suggests a strategy and provides a first bank of ideas to change the scale of a city and enact the Greater Paris.
Future workshop
One of the main ideas is to focus on the Boulevard Péripherique, the physical and psychological border of the city, which symbolizes the tension between Paris and its suburbs. This was the first reason to send Parsons students to study this urban breach. Paris Galaxies approach to address the issue consists in replacing both architecture and social dynamics in a more eco-systemic and aesthetic perspective, and in generating urban creative typologies, where the visible and the invisible are entangled. From this emerges a patchwork of urban creative profiles to be projected in the future, simultaneously preserving their local diversity and building a shared identity.
In order for these urban portraits to be representative of the territories considered (4 groups of students were dispatched in 4 areas of the periphery: Pantin, Ivry, Nanterre, and St Denis), Parsons students were assigned to walk from the inner-Paris to their area, investigate and inquire about all constituents of the area like the history, the socio-cultural and economic realities, the artistic and poetic dimensions. The exhibition displayed both the creative and multi-faceted urban portraits, complemented by possible future narratives.
Trans-disciplinary art-based research
With its trans-disciplinary and future oriented design methodology, Paris Galaxies lab tries to demonstrate that a creative approach of the city can serve as a strategic planning tool, still addressing objectives such as well-being, sustainability or community building, something that more conventional planning methods often fail to achieve.
