ISSUE #01
PAPRIKA IN PUBLIC
I believe that the public space is a forum for human coexistence and conflict; a place where history is made and day to day life develops. Either through spontaneous or planned activity, it is a place that is accessible to all, and in its mix of people, it makes problems visible, but also makes solutions possible. My research has focused on the relationship between the quality of public space and wellbeing. A prime example of this relationship is the way women feel unsafe and discriminated against in both indoor and outdoor public space. This project aims to revitalise the equality of public space, to reclaim its social purpose, and address women´s wellbeing. A dialog and a call to action is more necessary than ever. Andrea Tabernero
ISSUE #01
CONTENTS
06
08
The biggest sculpture in
Fountain Hacks
the World 10
12
The Banana Advice
Led Cloud
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16
How do women feel in public?
The Coriander Club
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20
Monuments don’t represent
Spreading the Nipple
genders equally. 22
24
The fourth plinth.
Be part.
This zine is a prototype as part of a series of interventions and other projects from other organizations done during the research period in the MA Applied Imagination in the Creative Industries 2018, Central Saint Martins, the University of Arts London. It was collated by Andrea Tabernero. Layout and Cover Illustration by Andrea Tabernero
PAPRIKA IN PUBLIC
Foreword, by Lewis Killin. Hello, and thanks for picking up this zine. I was asked to write this foreword, but a few words in and I’ve realised I know very little about public space. What I do know is that I care about the places I either have to or choose to spend my time. If you’re reading this, you probably care a little bit too. Which means this zine has been made as an invitation for you to care more. Anyway. I think about public space and well, I own that with everyone else, so can’t the fact it look so bad be someone else’s problem? Maybe if I just wait, it’ll magically get better. Unfortunately, that never happens, ever. It’s faster to do something yourself, just as long as it’s something; anything. So fuck it! This zine represents that spirit in a nutshell. It ties together the work that people have done to make their public spaces significantly better. It’s a catalogue of ideas that might look right at home at home. The things in here range from regular folks working on their own to big groups of artists. The important thing is they’re all community minded people who care about the same thing. If you think you fall somewhere on that spectrum, this zine is who you write to with your ideas. It’ll give you a platform and might just help you link in with like minded people. There’s probably someone round the corner who agrees that your local park looks shit. Like public space, this is open to everyone. And while we’re on that point: this first issue of Paprika in Public focuses on how to improve public spaces for women. Women, who make up ½ of that “everyone” population and commonly and frequently and starkly report that these spaces aren’t spaces they really want to be in.
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Images :Amit Dave
THE BIGGEST SCULPURE IN THE WORLD
The 182 meters of the Statue of Unity have been discovered on Wednesday on the banks of the Narmada River, in the State of Gujarat (India). Around 210,000 cubic meters of cement, 25,000 tons of steel and 1,700 of bronze in the figure of Vallabhbhai Patel, one of the heroes of the independence of India in the region that saw him and the current prime minister of the country, Narendra Modi; The conciseness of the world’s largest law as an allegory to one of the leaders of the anti-colonialist movement. Patel, was a long with Mahatma Gandhi, leader of the anti-colonialist movement of the subcontinent, and Jawaharlal Nehru, first leader of independent India, Patel was Interior Minister during the first years and the main promoter of the reunification of 562 main states in the only tricolor flag of India. However, activists of the lower castes have criticized the lifting of the sculpture in a place destined to the agricultural activity of local tribes, and that
has cost 352.5 million euros in a society segregated by the socioeconomic gap between the very rich and the extremely poor.
The project is “a criminal waste of public funds when there are people living in poverty and struggling to survive,” says one of the many lawsuits demanding cancellation. Even though it is one of the most prosperous states in India, thanks in part to the economy of Bombay, Maharashtra has worrying socio-economic indicators. Its spending on health care this year less than 17 euros per inhabitant, while a quarter of children in the region have weight levels below the national average. PAPRIKA IN PUBLIC
CONTROVERSY within monuments. State of Gujarat (India) 2018
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FOUNTAIN HACKS. Guimarães, Portugal 2012 by LIKEarchitects with Ricardo Dourado.
Located in the interior of Portugal, Guimarães presents a high number of fountains with the quest to reduce somehow the summertime heat. Our proposal, to be implemented during the hottest months, is to intervene on these fountains, enhancing their use by creating a new (water)land of urban opportunities. URBAN PLUG-IN: Fountain Hacks is an interventive system that takes advantage of the dichotomy between traditional and new – adding new elements to valorise the pre-existence. (Re)Using standard pool stairs, typical waterslides or domestic showers, Fountain Hacks is far away of being an average place. PLAYFUL MASTERPLAN: Bringing joy to the city, this playful strategy is a Masterplan for a city whose inhabitants will become happier - bathing in fountains is a public demonstration of happiness, only seen when the city’s soccer club achieves something remarkable. Fountain Hacks is about the urban renewal based on the idea that the key to evolve into a pulsating city is to promote the active inhabitancy by the community. COLLECTIVE OUTCOME: Fountain Hacks is not a static architecture. It’s a developing system on taking advantage of urban equipments and extending its fields of action. It’s a win-win situation, an urban symbiosis, able to adapt to new contexts and therefore replicable in the essence. It explores the potential of using a traditional monument as platform for a new urban space and questions the social barriers that forbid us to fully enjoy the common space.
PAPRIKA IN PUBLIC
Images: Francisca Sottomayor
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THE BANANA ADVICE Edinburgh, Scotland. 2018 By Andrea Tabernero
Fostering connectivity through memorable disruptIon.
After talking to a number of people over 60, the key issue that came out was the lack of their voices in our current society, so I decided in a creative way and with a touch of humor to give them the opportunity to express themselves.
The lack of sense of communities generating loneliness and depression is now considered an epidemy, affected as sickness by 9,000,000 people in the UK. Public space has acted as a vital aspect of these cities, acting as forums for its inhabitants and a centerpiece of community , providing a sense of purpose, social relationship and identity. They are physical forms laden with non-material political values and potent social, economic and historical meaning. When we consider contemporary issues of social isolation, loneliness, and a lack of trust in community security, the historic role of public space becomes relevant, as does their absence in our society. Since the power of a public space lies in human activity and communication within it, my concern and line of enquiry is how to generate an intervention that can encourage people to consider, use and revive the legitimacy of public spaces. PAPRIKA IN PUBLIC
As a pilot of the intervention, I asked them to say something that they would like to advice or inspired to the World. Later, I wrote these messages in some bananas, which are the second most consumed fruit in the UK. I went to a medium transit street residential area and hung the bananas on a fence with a poster saying: FREE ADVICE BANANA. The response of the people to the initiative was very positive. The objective were to bring up two issues as promote healthy and listen to those who feel excluded. Advice Banana is not elitist or exclusionary. It represents a basic social connection that should be extended to all members of the public.
Images: Lewis Killin
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LED CLOUD
Amsterdam, NL 2013 Sophie Valla Architects
From a gas station to a public square A permanent light installation is the main feature of two refurbished 1980s gas stations. Evert Verhagen, project manager of Amterdam North’s new Noorderpark, saw an opportunity in the neglected buildings and asked Amsterdam-based French architect Sophie Valla to turn them into cultural centres. According to Valla, ‘the new light installations turned the derelict buildings into colourful structures, creating an instant landmark for both drivers riding on the nearby highway and the park crowd.’ Sixty textile panels made of advertising fabrics were cut to various sizes to meet the dimensions of the structure of the gas stations roofs. Each panel that comprises the 10 by 40 meters artificial sky forms a LED-like screen that can be programmed independently. Twenty 30 minutes long light animations make up ‘fluctuating skies – inspired by nature but generated with technology – that lead us through bright and stormy days from sunrise to sunset,’ as the architect explains. Concrete floors and furniture help make up this ‘conspicuously stylish urban spot’ which Valla hopes will ‘appeal to neighbouring youths’.
PAPRIKA IN PUBLIC
Images: Marcus Koppen
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HOW DO WOMEN FEEL IN PUBLIC? PAPRIKA IN PUBLIC
65% of US women have experienced some form of street harassment, 23% have been sexually harassed, and 37% don’t feel safe walking home at night.*
In Papua New Guinea, more than 90% of women and girls have experienced some form of violence on public trasport.*
In South Africa, just 12% of women feel safe from verbal or physical abuse in their own neighborhoods, and 80% surveyed had experienced some form of abuse in the past year, according to a 2015 ActionAid report.
84% of Brazilian women reported having been sexually harassed by the police. *
*Data from 2016 United Nation women.
UNESCO says: ‘A public space refers to an area or place that is open and accessible to all peoples, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age or socio-economic level. These are public gathering spaces such as plazas, squares and parks. Connecting spaces, such as sidewalks and streets, are also public spaces.’
But wait, there is something that doesn’t make that sense… If Women are suffering more sexual harassment in public spaces than men, Women have less monuments that recognize them. I think is clear that public space is not the same for everybody. United Kingdom: End Violence Against Women Coalition commissioned YouGov to conduct the first national poll on street harassment in 2016. 64% of women of all ages have experienced unwanted sexual harassment in public places. Additionally, 35% of women had experienced unwanted sexual touching. 85% of women ages 18-24 had faced sexual harassment in public spaces and 45% had experienced unwanted sexual touching.
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THE CORIANDER CLUB East London, Spitalfields City Farm, UK Founded by Lutfun Hussain.
Images: Jeremy Freedman PAPRIKA IN PUBLIC
Community gardening provides opportunities for older immigrant women to socialize while greening the neighbourhood
THEIR ETHICS - To give people the opportunity to become members of their community and encourage participation in the development of the farm. - To explore and promote the benefits of healthy and sustainable lifestyles. - To sustainably manage natural ecosystems for the benefit of local wildlife and as a resource for education and recreation. - To promote biodiversity and approaches which people can take to help improve environments for wildlife. WHAT THEY DO The Coriander Club consists of mainly older women from Bangladesh, and this communal gardening provides them with opportunities to cultivate South Asian produce‌ and socialize. Members of the Coriander Club tend to live in Tower Hamlets, an area better known for its street markets and curry houses than for its green space. With its rabbit hutches and guinea pigs, grazing heritage sheep, and abundance of vegetables, aromatic herbs and wildflowers, the Spitalfield City Farm is a definite curiosity in the area. Despite its young and diverse population profile (24% of the entire Bangladeshi population in the UK is concentrated here ), Tower Hamlets remains one of the most deprived boroughs in the country. It has high overall levels of both unemployment and dietary illnesses. Lutfun Hussain, the current Project Coordinator of the Coriander Club, founded the initiatve in 2000 as a way to engage a specific group of local people that were considered at risk for social exclusion. However, something as simple as growing plants soon provided a greater sense of ownership, accomplishment and community. Today, the women keep fit and active by growing the organic vegetables for their families and the cooking classes help to promote healthy diets. ISSUE #01
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MONUMENTS DON’T REPRESENT GENDERS EQUALLY.
It is difficult to ignore the sculptures when one walks through the streets of Barcelona. The great majority looks majestic in parks and in key points of the city. Dominant figures who are often standing, but can also be seen sitting, stoically adopting a pose. Each one gives off its essence, but the great majority has one characteristic in common: gender. Statistics compiled by the women’s rights campaigner and journalist Caroline Criado-Perez from the database of the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association (PMSA), found there are 925 statues in the UK. However, only 158 of them are stand-alone statues of women – just 15 per cent of the national total. Even of these 158 statues that exist, Criado-Perez’s research shows that most are of royals (she counted 19 of Queen Victoria), mythical or allegorical figures, the Virgin Mary (who has 14) or generic nudes. She only found 25 statues of specific non-royal women. In February, Times journalist and Conservative member of the House of Lords, Lord Finkelstein, described these figures as “a national embarrassment”. And, what about the United States? The same. Of the approximately 5,193 public statues that represent historical figures throughout the country, only 394 are women. What is probably the most famous of all, the Statue of Liberty, is one of the only 5 with which New York has. (Although, again, it’s not a real woman).
PAPRIKA IN PUBLIC
Barcelona : 168 of men – 14 of women United Kingdom: 925 of men – 158 of women US: 5,196 of men – 394 of women *Monuments according to the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association (PMSA)
What is the reason for such an exaggerated difference? “Incredibly, there are still people who are afraid that women will leave the house. Of what they think, even. A reality that must change and that we can only achieve if we all do our part “, assures Isabel Gascón (presidenta of Grup d’Història de les Dones que fan Història) “That they have not been honored until now, does not mean they are not part of the story. We must give them the importance they deserve, even if we do it several centuries later, “She says.
*** The first sculpture of a woman by a female artist in London’s Parliament Square was unveiled to the public on Tuesday. The Turner Prize-winning artist Gillian Wearing’s memorial to the suffragist Millicent Fawcett joins 11 statesmen—including Winston Churchill, Lloyd George, Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela—in the symbolic public space opposite the Houses of Parliament. Abraham Lincoln stands nearby on the opposite side of the street. Fawcett is shown holding a banner with the words: “Courage calls to courage everywhere.” The activist used the phrase to describe the death of suffragette Emily Davison, who was killed when she ran onto the racetrack in the Epsom Derby in 1913 to raise awareness for the cause.
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SPREADING THE NIPPLE
London, UK. 2018 By Andrea Tabernero, in supervision of psicologist Saisha Partiman and the With the collaboration of 7 women.
Feminine NIPPLES have being stigmatized in our society for decades. Considered obscene and banned on social media, and against the law in most of places, including cities like London. Whereas men’s one are accepted. Nipples as a symbol of feminism and against the stigmatization, to claim gender equally in public spaces.. To create a bold statement and protest, and as a disruptive moment, fostering curiosity, imagination and questions. Create your own monument women! ‘As a pilot of the intervention, I gathered 7 women in a focus group that suffered sexual harassment in public indoor or outdoor spaces. The exercise was anonymous and confidential to start working in a comfort zone. The dialog was a key point in the workshop, sharing experiences as a process of healing and improve of self-esteem.’ says Andrea.
PAPRIKA IN PUBLIC
The focus groups consisted of four parts: 1. A conversation about positive and negative experiences that had lived in the public space. 2. A conversation about monuments we recognized from our surroundings and routine, revealing a theme about the absence and vandalism of female sculptures, which sometimes made them feel very uncomfortable and frustrated. How could a sculpture suffer sexual harassment in the same way as women? 3. Creating a monument. In support of the scoping analysis from my survey, I wanted to give these women the agency to create something, to take ownership of a monument. I asked them to try to remember the shape of their nipples and try to reproduce it through the clay freely as they felt. This step introduced many different personal, individual takes on a simple activity I had never considered. They painted it with a colour that identified each other the most. 4. Choosing a place to host the monuments. Through a vote, all members of the group decided that these monuments were best placed in Finsbury Park, a place that was associated with discomfort, a lack of safety, and a sense of avoidance. “This experience opened my eyes some way. It make me feel that I have a voice, and that my persona matter as anyone. It was definitely an empowering activity. I embrace my femininity, I don’t feel ashamed of it. Finsbury Park for the first time make me feel that I could belong. it was excited!� S.M (participant)
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THE FOURTH PLINTH Trafalgar Square, UK. 2005 - present Project organized by London City Hall
Democratizing monuments This project is a good example of rethinking an space that has been sufering lack of identity for decades. The London city hall has been trying to repurpose the activity of Trafalgar Square to make it more apropiate for human scale and to engage more people. Including other cultural events, concerts and markets.
What is about? The Fourth plinth is the northwest plinth in Trafalgar Square in central London. It was originally intended to hold an equestrian statue of William IV, but remained bare due to insufficient funds. For over 150 years the fate of the plinth was debated; in 1998, the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) commissioned three contemporary sculptures to be displayed temporarily on the plinth. Shortly afterwards, Chris Smith, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, commissioned Sir John Mortimer to seek opinions from public art commissioners, critics and members of the public as to the future of the plinth. Mortimer’s final report recommended that the commissions remain a rolling programme of temporary artworks rather than settle permanently on one figure or idea to commemorate. In 2003, the ownership of Trafalgar Square was transferred from Westminster City Council to the Mayor of London and this marked the beginning of the Mayor of London’s Fourth Plinth Commission as it is now known. Fourth Plinth Schools Awards The annual Fourth Plinth Schools Award is the education project within the Mayor of London’s Fourth Plinth Programme. The award uses the Fourth Plinth as an inspiration to engage primary and secondary schools in London to enter a competition that encourages creative thinking around past and present artworks displayed on the Fourth Plinth. PAPRIKA IN PUBLIC
Marc Quinn, 2005 Yinka Shonibare, 2010
Katharina Fritsch, 2015
Antony Gormley, 2009
Elmgreen Dragset, 2012
One of the few statues of a disabled woman in the UK was of artist Alison Lapper, who featured on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square, before it came down in 2007. The statue is owned by the artist and is currently in need of a permanent home.
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Be part of Paprika in public: Do you have a project to share? Do you have an story or an experience that the World needs to know? Do you just have something to say about Public Spaces? This is a call to action! Contact us if you would like to be informed of the next publications or colaborate with us: hello@andreatabernero.com +44 (0) 757 6840720
PAPRIKA IN PUBLIC
Other information about releated organizations UN Women: www.unwomen.org/en Nationa organization for Women: www.now.org/ inVISIBLE women: www.invisiblewomen.com.my/ Unesco: www.en.unesco.org/ Public Monuments and Sculpture Association (PMSA): www.pmsa.org.uk/ Art British Council: www.artscouncil.org.uk/ Creative Scotland: www.creativescotland.com/ Grup d’Història de les Dones que fan Història Solace: www.solacewomensaid.org Stop Street Harassment: www.stopstreetharassment.org Arrels: www.arrelsfundacio.org/en/ The Art Outreach Society (TAOS): www.taos.org.in/ Mayor London: www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do Soi Street heroes of India: www.street-heroes.org/
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Special thanks to: Emilia Dominguez by being the best sponsor ever. Lewis Killin, as a support in all possible ways. Arnau Duran and Miriam Gonzalez, always there ready to listen. *** Andrea Tabernero. PAPRIKA IN PUBLIC