The Insurgent Spatial Practices research collective is a group of academics and activists interested to learn about the relationship between place (object), people (subject), and their spatial practices, which are often at the margins or in direct opposition to state-sanctioned spatialized policies. We want to know how people appropriate urban places, transform them, provide new uses, endow them with new meaning and, in the process, transform themselves. Last year, our research collective taught the course of Urban Activism at Tampere University, where we explored the subject/object relationship and practices. This year, within the framework of the Urban Studies Days in Tampere, our research collective organized an excursion to Hiedanranta, where participants were able to learn about ongoing projects on the site through the stories of the people mobilizing there. Through the Narrating Hiedanranta workshop and together with the participants, we will continue to learn about the people, the spatial practices, and the appropriations of Hiedanranta.
With the aim of bringing the workshop to the city and the general public, we have organized a series of public events that will be held during the three-day intensive workshop. On 8 June 2022, you are welcome to join us in Hiedanranta at 14.00 to hear about Luc Pauwel’s exciting Visual Methods and later, we will meet at 20.00 at Raina Cafe and Bar for the Short-film Evening: Grassroots Stories of Tampere. Here we will show other stories of urban activism transforming the city of Tampere. We start the next day at 10.00 in Hiedanranta with a thought-provoking keynote lecture by Jeremy Hawkins to learn about the power of Poetic Practices. We end the workshop on 10 June 2022 with the inspiring Makeshift Exhibition: Co-constructed Stories where we will showcase the outcome of the workshop and discuss future practices.
This workshop is organized within the framework of the COST Action CA18126 – Writing Urban Places. The local organising team is comprised of the Insurgent Spatial Practices (research collective), the School of Architecture, and the Department of Environmental Policy at Tampere University and is supported by STUE (Sustainable Transformation of Urban Environments).
Photograph: Aleksi Martikainen.
