Sascia Bailer

URGENCIA TERRITORIAL

TERRITORIAL URGENCY

critical urban practices towards a just city: mercado san roque, quito, ecuador

DOCUMENTATION OF A RESEARCH-BASED CURATORIAL PROCESS september 2015 - may 2017

Sascia Bailer

A THESIS PROJECT BY SASCIA BAILER MA THEORIES OF URBAN PRACTICE SCHOOL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN NEW YORK CITY ADVISING BY MIGUEL ROBLES-DURAN (ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF URBANISM, SCHOOL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES) & LYDIA MATTHEWS (PROFESSOR OF VISUAL CULTURE, SCHOOL OF ART, MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY) MAY 2017

TABLE OF CONTENT

INTRODUCTION page 1

CURATORIAL ESSAY page 2 - 13

RESEARCH page 14 - 37

CONCEPT page 38 - 125

PRODUCTION page 126 - 147

EXHIBITION page 148- 185

REFLECTION & CREDITS

INTRODUCTION

PEAK OF THE ICEBERG Exhibitions are temporary events; culminations of long processes of research, conceptual, editorial and organisational work. Exhibitions form the peak of an iceberg of any curatorial process. Seldom we have the chance to fully grasp the process that was necessary for the creation the exhibition - which we so often naturally enter.

This publication is an attempt to make my curatorial process for “URGENCIA TERRITORIAL - critical urban practices towards a just city: mercado san roque, quito, ecuador” at the Sheila Johnson Design Center in New York open and accessible to others. To my own surprise, this is a much more senstive undertaking than I had first expected. It makes oneself vulnerable by laying open personal struggles, misconceptions, trail and errors, and visions that might have to remain unrealized. Whereas the final exhibition will have been the focus all along and will be presented in its most impeccable manner -- the path there will be a windy road, with ups and downs, full of doubt, and reconsiderations.

My hope is to give the reader an understanding of the scope of a curatorial process - not as a model for future exhibitions but maybe as a reference or even inspiration to other scholars and practioners.

This publication is clustered along the four main phases of the curatorial process: research, concept, production and the final stage of the exhibition. Each section has a short summary, introducing the viewer to the scope of this phase (in black color), followed by working documents that were created along the way (in grey color). This may range from minutes, writing exercises, sketches, diagram, field notes to curatorial drafts. I want to note that these documents were not re-edited again for this publication, but remain in their original form. The publication ends with visual material from the final exhibition and its opening on January 24th 2017 at the Sheila Johnson Design Center.

I want to thank everyone who has supported me along this process and want to give special thanks to Lucas Alvarez, Ilia Oleandro Batzios Bailer, Karin Bailer, Manfred Bailer, Patricia Bailer, Caroline Brendel, Fernando Canteli De Castro, Daniel Chou, Henar Diez, Hashem Eaddy, Anna Gehlhaar, Hector Grad, David Harvey, Luis Herrera, Kristina Kaufman, Aurelia Kirsch, Mira Kirsch, Jorin Kirsch, Anahi Macaroff, Gamar Makarian, Lydia Matthews, Sinead Petrasek, Rob Robinson, Miguel Robles-Duran, Ana Rodriguez, Ninette Rothmueller, School of Design Strategies, Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes, Radhika Subramaniam, the Urban Council, University Student Senate, Daisy Wong, Judy Wong, and Silvia Xavier.

Sascia Bailer, Curator of URGENCIA TERRITORIAL

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The Demand of the Territory ”Let´s imagine a Quito without a market like this one.

Let´s imagine a historic city center without indigenous people.

Let´s imagine a city of Quito where a tourist can go from one wonderful church to another without seeing anyone who´s different. It might seem absurd but this is what urban planners are proposing these days. This is what they call a modernized city — this is what is killing the city.“

CURATORIAL ESSAY

David Harvey at the alternative urban forum “Mercados populares y soberanía alimentaria en las ciudades“ that took place during the UN Habitat III Conference in Quito in October 20161

Mercado San Roque is the city’s largest traditional food market, feeding one third of the city. It has existed for about 35 years and is sustained by approximately 3000 people, many of them indigenous. Even though the Mercado has a key cultural, social and economic function within the urban realm of Quito — and its rural extensions into the agricultural lands of Ecuador — the Mercado is an urban territory in tension and rivalry with its surrounding areas. Its proximity to Quito’s red light district, the former jail García Moreno but also the nearby historic center — a UNESCO World Heritage site — has provoked the municipality to announce plans to displace the market from its current site. The intention is to redevelope the area for tourism purposes, including a proposal to develop the former jail into a 5-star hotel; inspired by a luxury urban renewal project in Boston.2 The public perception of the site remains marked by its association with prostitution, drugs and crime, which leads to the majority of Quiteños to avoid the Mercado overall. Instead they turn to the growing number of supermarkets across the city,3 opting for the clean and orderly appearance of those commercial sites - deliberately accepting more expensive goods, an increasing alienation from Ecuador’s traditional culture, and a shift towards a globalized, standardized buyers experience.

Such developments can be understood as symptoms of neoliberal policy, which advocates for free trade, privatization, and deregulation. Globally, these policies have been implemented by international agencies like the United Nations, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. Latin America in particular, with its abundant resources, has been a laboratory for Western-led neoliberal experimentation, in which free market policies were violently introduced, beginning in the 1980s most prominently with Chile.4 As the “neoliberal model” failed to deliver its promises, the continent’s largest economies were hit with economic crisis, creating enormous social divides and international debt — “For the general population things did not go very well, but for elite they went very well, and for foreign investors things went very well for few years.”5 In the search for alternative economic models, many Latin American countries elected left-leaning governments: In 2008, Rafael Correa in Ecuador announced

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a new constitution which recognized the country as a plurinational state6 in accordance with the demands of indigenous activist groups -- which, at least nominally, recognizes „public coexistence, in diversity and in harmony with nature, to achieve a good way of living.“7 It also urged for an alternative - “postneoliberal” - economy, transitioning from resource extraction to other sectors, like commerce, culture and tourism, fostering urban growth and development. This transition is not without ambivalence and obstacles, creating a set of internal contradictions by embracing capital-driven urban development via displacement strategies; oftentimes of indigenous communities.8 It is this rich mixture of global political agendas, unkept promises, neoliberal policies, municipal neglect, social and cultural conflicts that forms the shaky ground on which the future of Mercado San Roque is built. These precarious conditions of the Mercado propel a “territorial urgency”, referring to the complex composition of historic layers, hierarchies and power relations that insist on a demand for action.9 Anahi Macaroff and Alejandro Cevallo, two Quito-based community organizers and urban educators, write: “Territorial urgency is the demand that emerges from the social context and asks us to position ourselves from our place of work.”10 Interestingly, the complex territory sets its own agenda, demanding the practitioner to respond to the urgencies of the site.

Recognizing this “territorial urgency“ of Mercado San Roque, local associations of market workers have come together with other regional activist groups to form a resistance movement that exposes and challenges the state and global market forces that create the precarious conditions of the traditional marketplace.

The aim of the resistance movement is to promote an alternative vision of the market and to work against the exclusionary, racialized narrative of the market, demanding “appropriate infrastructure to guarantee food security for a great part of the city, sanitation and waste processing, space for loading and parking, better working conditions and social protection, and more security.”11 The leading force of the resistance within the Mercado is Frente Defensa de Mercado San Roque (FDMSR) — an assembly of leaders from various worker´s associations of the market — and the activist network, Red de Saberes [Network of Knowledge], who consists of a diverse group of artists, curators, scholars, politicians, lawyers and activists. They refer to themselves as an „unstable, sporadic“12 independent space that seeks to emphasize the variety of forms of knowledge, diverse cultures and generations within the market, working closely with FDMSR. Red de Saberes´ practice is not concerned with artistic interventions but the construction of short term activities that form part of a longterm process to positively affect the Mercado on three different levels:13 to create internal coherence within the divided, conflictual structures of the associations within the Mercado (FDMSR), to communicate the rich cultural and historic importance of the market to the outside, and to visibilize the wide network of „affinity groups“ from cultural and artistic fields that have become allies of the resistance movement.14

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CURATORIAL ESSAY

It is particularly through this collaborative structure and their continued presence that political effects are achieved. Ana Rodriguez, researcher, curator and member of Red de Saberes, emphasizes the importance of showing presence in the vernacular of the Mercado but also on a political level15 — „estar, estar, estar!“16 is the Spanish equivalent to being present. Not only in the context of Quito, but also in Chicago, critical urban practitioner and socially engaged artist Theaster Gates, has iterated the radical notion of persistence and presence in community-related work: “I am not moving. I have not moved. That staying becomes a political act. The most radical thing I could do — as my class changes, as more opportunities grow — is to simply stay where I am.”17

¿Qué hacemos? In Search of a Collaborative Urban Practice As artists, urbanists, designers, scholars and educators — how do we insert ourselves into a contested site that is foreign to us to envision projects for social justice? And how do we collaborate across disciplines, languages and continents to create a more just city?

These questions were central to us as a group of eight students from two graduate urban programs at Parsons School of Design in New York — while considering possible forms of engagement with Mercado San Roque and its urgent demand for recognition, interference and resistance. For one of our studio classes we departed on a journey to Ecuador to critically engage with practitioners in Quito, and to develop research-led design proposals with a focus on social and spatial justice. Whereas the above cited examples of critical urban practices were centered on issues within their own communities, our project would be based in a site that initially was foreign to us. Even New York, where we were based, was only a temporary home to all eight of us, who came from seven different countries. This international group of practitioners came with a diverse disciplinary and cultural perspective and therefore demanded a rigorous collaborative scope with Quito-based organisations and individuals. Our main collaborators were from the group Red de Saberes who introduced us to the city, the ongoing tensions, the Mercado, their professional network, their friends and families. We observed, listened and deepened our understanding of the site in several field trips between 2015 and 2016, and in continuous working sessions with Red de Saberes, interviews with educators, activists, merchants, city dwellers, politicians, artists across Quito, in direct engagement with FDMSR and individuals at various traditional markets across town.

In a way, Mercado San Roque served as an entry point into Quito’s urban tensions, mechanisms and power relations. This allowed us to explore the market in a prismatic manner, considering macro political shifts, global economic trends, diverse theoretical approaches, regional urban events, social and cultural histories of Ecuador as a country but also the Mercado as an urban

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ecology within Quito. As a multi-disciplinary collective, we followed our individual research foci, but maintained a strong connection with the team and our partners, addressing a variety of urgent issues in and around the market — spanning from uneven development, to indigenous rights, alternative heritage discourse, urban pedagogy, food justice and tourism branding. Over the course of one year we developed five site-specific proposals that could strengthen the existing resistance movements in the market, and to extend its networks and strategies towards solidarity with international movements: With a focus on visual representation as a tool, Gamar Markarian and Tait Mandler have developed large infographics that show the rural-urban flows of goods and people within Ecuador and abroad. Their documentary highlights the need for an efficient solidarity network between the different social groups within the public markets of Quito; this contemporary condition can arguably be the result of a long history of uneven land ownership. The two authors have traced the history of landownership in Ecuador from the pre-Inca period until today’s post-neoliberal state; a unique historic document that allows for a critical reading of Ecuador´s present tense.

Masoom Moitra has worked with indigenous migrant families in the Mercado and the adjacent bilingual school, seeking for ways to support their struggles against gendered violence and their right to bilingual education. For her, these struggles are a global phenomenon, so she has created the workshop series Escuela de Esperanza [School of Hope] with the Ecuadorian community in Queens, New York, strengthening their networks on a global scale. By starting a dialogue with cultural institutions, embassies and ministries in Ecuador and New York, Masoom seeks to formalize and to politicize these matters, establishing not only an informal but also a formal network of support.

In order to create autonomy for the urban indigenous communities of Quito, Maria Morales and Mateo Fernandez-Muro have developed the pilot project En Comun(a). It consists of a website in which the inhabitants of Quito’s 49 indigenous communes can connect to map their own territory, to share their practices and to build a sharing economy. This is a response to the lack of defined borders of indigenous communal lands within Quito, that are currently only represented as dots on a map, making their territories increasingly vulnerable to neoliberal urbanization strategies and capital pressures.

At the core of Sinead Petrasek’s research-driven project lies a collage of materials that speak to the discourse around the Mercado as the anti-maravilla [anti-wonder] of the city, in stark contrast with the colonial city center, a designated UNESCO heritage site. The focus of her work lies particularly on the ways in which ways arts-based community practices have attempted to shift the perception of the Mercado through their initiatives — while putting their political agenda before their aesthetic choices.

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In order to showcase the far reaching consequences of tourism-led development Alexandra Venner has developed a comic booklet in which she demonstrates the effects of global economic forces on Mercado San Roque. Through this educational tool, the author hopes to create awareness amongst the workers of Mercado San Roque for the ways in which tourism might shape the future of the city and their market. This critical pedagogical tool was developed in contrast to Ecuador´s strong tourism advertisements that portray harmonious views of the country, focusing on picturesque landscapes while leaving out the people.

To give these projects a wider audience, we proposed an exhibition at the Aronson Galleries at the Sheila Johnson Design Center in New York. Over the course of one year, a curatorial framework was developed that puts the multiple tensions of Mercado San Roque and its wider social function at its core, establishing an exhibition that allows individual entry points for a diverse audience, whether with a general, academic or arts background.

In the Exhibition: From New York to Quito and Back Stacked pallets; an umbrella; painted colorful signs; a table with a patterned cloth; old wooden boxes on the floor: these items confront the viewer as they enter the gallery. The conventional exhibition space is disrupted by a selection of market ephemera that create a visual language of temporary, informal market spaces. The market items build a bridge between the foreign and the familiar - crossing continents and cultural barriers, speaking to market spaces across the world while telling their own story of how items are packaged, sold and dispatched globally. Whereas these market items all have a direct reference to Mercado San Roque and therefore bring the atmosphere of the market closer to the audience, the items were fully sourced in New York, blurring the boundaries between what is foreign and local.

An intricate connection between the struggles of Mercado San Roque and the struggles of a gentrifying New York unfold when we take a closer look at the source of the wooden boxes, for example. What seemed to exist in abundance in the Mercado in Quito had already become a rare item in New York where plastic and cardboard boxes fill storage spaces. In New York, wooden boxes only seemed to exist in particular spaces like the Farmer’s Market at Union Square, where they served as a display for overpriced organic apples. Unexpectedly, it was in Midtown, amidst skyscrapers and tourist hordes, where we found a small family-run fruit and vegetable wholesale market. With a storage space full of wooden boxes, they let us take a few for our project. We had received support from a group of immigrants who had been the last survivors of small shop owners in a fast changing neighborhood, where gentrification and displacement

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strategies have pushed out most of the traditional food vendors, giving space to real estate projects and supermarket chains. As a result, the wooden boxes can be read as a remaining symbol of the joint struggles and resistance movement of small market vendors within a global market economy that spans between Quito and New York.

Within a gallery setting the function of the wooden boxes is altered — as pedestals and shelves these initially empty boxes have turned into support infrastructure for collectively created knowledge. Through a participatory effort, the boxes are filled over the course of the show with handmade origami fruits and vegetables; a colorful table in the gallery holds paper material in different colors and a sign that invites the audience to be part of the collective construction of the market.

Other items within the gallery space were sourced differently, some in online market places like Amazon.com, others were collected off the recycling circuit of the street, others purchased in a store of an arts and craft supply chain.

As each item comes from a different marketplace, they allude to the multiple understanding of “market” in contemporary culture and to ways in which consumer culture is practiced in today’s market economy.

This collection of market ephemera within the gallery is understood as an anthropological exercise that is not without ambivalence: the market scenario might carry the notion of an exoticizing gesture; an unthoughtful accumulation of market elements. Yet the market elements are a careful selection of visual references that establish a conceptual, cultural and geographic framework between informal and formal market places of Quito and New York, while set in dialogue with conventional exhibition aesthetics. It is this internal friction that catches the attention of the audience, inviting them into a conversation about ongoing urban struggles that they otherwise might have not engaged with.

“ >The market< sounds like a natural system that might bear upon us equally, like gravity or atmospheric pressure. But it is fraught with power relations.”18 George Monbiot In the exhibition space, the audience is confronted with the tensions that evolve around the dual meaning of the „term market“ – the global economic markets, like tourism, city branding, agribusiness, neoliberal policies on the one hand and the local, traditional food market, like Mercado San Roque, on the other. These tensions between the divergent concepts of the market create an internal dynamic that can be read as the driving force behind this critical urban investigation and of the curatorial platform itself.

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CURATORIAL ESSAY

The macro perspective of global markets finds representation in a range of „market terms“ that are attached below the ceiling, alluding to the subtle omnipresence of neoliberal market transactions. Terms like Value, Exchange, and Urban Expansion are written in English and Spanish, creating an intricate tension between colonial languages, and western dominance.

The notion of the local market tensions presents itself to the audience in form of a map that is taped onto the gallery floor, in neon-pink. It directly grounds the New York audience in the center of Quito, giving a sense of scale, direction and proposition. Where is the Mercado that everyone speaks about, and where is the jail and the historic center? Above each point of interest on the map hangs a headphone. Once the audience puts on the headphones they will hear five different Quiteños speaking to their city. For example, Galo Guachamin, vendor and coordinator of the association Frente Defensa y Modernización del Mercado San Roque, speaks enthusiastically about the Mercado, inviting everyone to go and see for themselves how energetic this place is - and to not pay attention to the negative media. Ana Rodriguez, curator and researcher, and former Vice Minister of Culture of Ecuador, shares her deep insights into the colonial history of the historic city center.

From this introduction into the dense web of tensions that exist within the social, political and economic geography of Quito, the audience can begin to look at the five site-specific proposals of the research team from a different perspective; having sensed the complexity of the matter, and having sensed the „territorial urgency“ at play. The five proposals are spread out across the wall space of the gallery, navigating the market tensions between the macro market terms on the top ceiling and the map of Quito on the floor, presenting critical design propositions that shift the power relations from the global towards the local.

Each of the projects formulates its own entry point into the tensions around the Mercado – and has developed its own strategy and methodological tools to address the urgencies of the market and beyond. The group as a whole seeks to respond these urgencies in their research agenda by focusing on intersecting issues of indigenous rights, uneven development, aggressive tourism campaigns, cultural heritage, alternative pedagogies, and food sovereignty. Each project presentation comes with a hand-painted sign, in grafica popular,19 that shows the key theme and question of each research undertaking. While referencing the simple sign-making of traditional market scenarios around the globe, the sign does not come with an intention of making material objects available to a public but rather offers knowledge, guidance and „food for critical thought“.

A subtle soundscape fills the gallery space; shouting and whistling, motor sounds, animals, people speaking and laughing - the sounds come from a long, uninterrupted video shot by of one of the students walking through Mercado San Roque.This personal perspective creates a direct link between the audience in New York and the people in Quito - particularly the position of the screen, in front

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of a large glass wall facing 5th Avenue (another global marketplace!), lets these two busy market scenarios blend into one another.

CURATORIAL ESSAY

The different elements of the exhibition can function as a collage of ethnographic research, architectural and artistic materials that allow the audience to enter the complexity of this territorial urgency. Through a range of media -- sound, video, installation, print -- the audience can establish an individual way of relating to the set of exposed tensions, economic and political frameworks, and regional urban struggles. The works establish a link of empathy and recognition between New York and Quito while portraying an alternative vision towards a more locally empowered and just city.

Urban Caretaking The aim of this multi-disciplinary, multi-scalar and cross-cultural collaboration is to critically engage with the given neoliberal operations that have come to span the globe, creating conditions for unjust and racialized urban developments.

Collaborative projects can form an expansive solidarity network in which resistance, critical thought and alternative propositions are fostered. In this case, a decentralized network of solidarity around the diverse struggles of Mercado San Roque is created that recognizes its “metabolic function”20 within the city of Quito, and its exemplary position for communal resistance against neoliberal urban development.

It is through “revealing the suppressed contradictions within urban processes”21 in times of „advanced capitalist urbanisation“22 that the team hopes to contribute to the formation of a „counterpractice“23 against the status quo of the capitaldriven production of urban space in Ecuador. Here, counterpractice can be understood as a „radical relational practice“24 which is of caring nature at its core; rooted in the practice of „urban curating“ or „social curating“, which is described a dialogical, collaborative and participatory process.25 Amongst others, urban theoriest and feminist Elke Krasny has articulated the social and care-taking dimension of curating by emphasizing its etymological Latin root, curare — to take care, to look after, to edit. From this locus, the caring for urban matters has to remain open-ended as a „programmatic equivalent to urban transformation processes that are permanently ongoing in different scales and different temporalities, as well as to the eternal change of social evolution.“26 She continues, „an urban curator’s job is at best never done and dis/continously incomplete.“27 As an urban theorist and the curator of the exhibition „URGENCIA TERRITORIAL/ TERRITORIAL URGENCY“, I regard the curatorial process as another layer, another social dimension to an already multi-disciplinary, “radical relational practice” that spans over temporal and spatial conditions; the exhibition functions as one element in a larger, continuous collective structure, where

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visibility is created for the struggles of the people of San Roque is created.28 Providing a platform for visibility and recognition can be read as a sincere act of caring for the territorial urgency in and around the Mercado, from where on the potential for urban transformation can be realized. In this caring process the immanent tensions of Quito do not come to an end, nor do the critical research and design proposals, nor the curatorial initiative itself — the public stage of the exhibition, and with it the acknowledgement of the local struggles, embody a continuation of a transformative process of which we do not know the outcome yet.

Endnotes 1 The quote of David Harvey was published in the newspaper El Diario (2016) in its Spanish version: “Imaginemos Quito sin mercados como éste. Imaginemos el centro histórico de Quito sin población indígena. Imaginemos un Quito donde un turista pueda ir de iglesia maravillosa a iglesia maravillosa sin ver en ningún momento a nadie diferente. Puede parecer descabellado pero es lo que los urbanizadores están proponiendo ahora mismo. Eso es lo que llaman modernizar la ciudad, eso es matar la ciudad”.

2 In 2014 President Rafael Correa visits The Liberty Hotel in Boston, which was converted from a former jail into a luxury hotel -- he considers implementing a similar project in Quito. These two newspaper articles speak to his visit and the scope of his plans: http://www.andes.info.ec/es/ noticias/presidente-ecuador-quiere-replicar-quito-experiencia-boston-transformo-carcel-hotel-lujo and http://www.elciudadano.gob.ec/la-transformacion-del-penal-g-moreno-en-un-hotel-tomaraimpulso/.

3 This article in Revista Lideres speaks to the increasing revenues of large supermarket chains across Ecuador: http://www.revistalideres.ec/lideres/grandes-cadenas-comerciales-alistaninversiones.html.

4 Sader, E. (2008).

5 David Harvey in an interview with Lilley, S. (2006).

6 Balch, O. (February 2013).

7 ibid.

8 Kingman Garcés, E. (2012).

9 Cevallo, A., Macaroff, A. (2015), p. 3.

10 Cevallo, A., Macaroff, A. (2015), p. 3. The original quote in Spanish reads as “La urgencia del territorio es la demanda que emerge del contexto social y nos pide posicionarnos desde nuestro lugar de trabajo.”

11 Original Spanish quote: “Que nos atiendan, que nos den infraestructura apta para garantizar la alimentación de una buena parte de la ciudad, condiciones de salubridad y de procesamiento de desechos, espacios de circulación y parqueo, mejores condiciones de trabajo y cobertura social, más seguridad en el sector. San Roque es un lugar de prácticas interculturales propias de esta ciudad.” These demands were published on the blog: Frente de Defensa y Modernización del Mercado San Roque frentemercadosanroque.wordpress.com.

12 Ana Rodriguez, interview by Sascia Bailer on October 24, 2015

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13 ibid.

14 ibid.

15 ibid.

16 ibid.

17 Gates, T. (2014).

18 Monbiot, G. (2016).

19 This international archive of „Grafica Popular“ hosts a unique collection of handpainted signs and murals: http://extranet.aecid.es/tuttifrutti/.

20 Ana Rodriguez, interview by Sascia Bailer on October 24, 2015.

21 ibid.

22 Deutsche, R. (1996), p. 56.

23 ibid.

CURATORIAL ESSAY

24 Krasny, E. (2015), p. 120.

25 Gheorghe, C. (2013), p. 4 26 ibid.

27 ibid.

28 Team members organized public presentations across New York, presented at the AUTONOMA conference in Athens (http://www.autonoma.gr) and at several alternative Urban Forums in Quito (https://resistenciapopularhabitat3.org, https://www.flacso.edu.ec/habitat/inicio/seminario_agenda. flacso) — which took place during the UN Habitat 3 Conference in October 2016 — promoting a critical vision of Habitat´s New Urban Agenda (https://unhabitat.org/new-urban-agenda-adopted-athabitat-iii).

Bibliography Alternative Urban Forum. Official website of FLACSO, last opened on May 10th 2017 at https://www.flacso.edu.ec/habitat/inicio/seminario_agenda.flacso Ana Rodriguez, Interview with Sascia Bailer on October 24th, 2015 in San Roque, Quito, Ecuador.

Balch, O. (February 2013). Buen vivir: the social philosophy inspiring movements in South America. Retrieved from The Guardian on May 10th 2017: https://www. theguardian.com/sustainable-business/blog/buen-vivir-philosophy-south-america-eduardo-gudynas Bravo, Pedro (October 2016). ¿Se puede hacer una ciudad para las personas sin cambiar la economía? Retrieved from El Diario on May 10th 2017: http://www.eldiario.es/desde-mi-bici/hacer-ciudad-personas-cambiar-economia_6_571552870. html Cevallos, A. & Macaroff, A. (2015). Contradecirse una Misma: Museos y Mediación Educativa Crítica, Quito: Fundación Museos de la Ciudad.

Deutsche, R. (1996). Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics. Massachusetts: MIT Press.

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Extranet - International archive of „Grafica Popular“. Official website. Retrieved on May 10th 2017 from http://extranet.aecid.es/tuttifrutti/ Gheorghe, C. (2013), Social curating and its public: curators from eastern Europe report on their practices. ON CURATING. Issue # 18/13 Kingman Garcés, E. (2012). San Roque y los estudios sociales urbanos. In San Roque: indígenas urbanos, seguridad y patrimonio. Quito: FLACSO.

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Krasny, E. (2015). Urban Curators At Work – Real-Imagined Histiographies. In B. Holub & C. Hohenbüchler, Planning - unplanned: Darf Kunst eine Funktion haben? Towards a new function of art in society. Wien: Verlag für moderne Kunst Loaiza, C. (April 2014). Presidente de Ecuador quiere replicar en Quito experiencia de Boston que transformó una cárcel en hotel de lujo. Retrieved from “Andes” on May 10th 2017: http://www.andes.info.ec/es/noticias/presidente-ecuador-quiere-replicar-quito-experiencia-boston-transformo-carcel-hotel-lujo Monbiot, George (April 2016). Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems. Retrieved from The Guardian on May 10th 2017: N.N. (2015). Las grandes cadenas comerciales alistan más inversions. Retrieved from “Revista Lideres” on May 10th 2017: http://www.revistalideres.ec/lideres/grandes-cadenas-comerciales-alistan-inversiones.html.

Resistencia Habitat III. Official website, last opened on May 10th 2017 at https://resistenciapopularhabitat3.org The New Urban Agenda. Official website of UN Habitat III, last opened on May 10th 2017 at ttps://unhabitat.org/new-urban-agenda-adopted-at-habitat-iii/ Torres, C. (April 2014). La transformación del Penal García Moreno en un hotel tomará impulse. Retrieved from “El Cuidadano” on May 10th 2017: http://www. elciudadano.gob.ec/la-transformacion-del-penal-g-moreno-en-un-hotel-tomaraimpulso/

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RESEARCH

september 2015

THE BEGINNING In Spring 2015, Professor Migues Robles-Duran presented a research project on territorial justice in Ecuador, asking interested students to join this interdisciplinary and collaborative investigative journey. I became one of eight students who would form a research and design collective centered on issues of urban practices in Ecuador, specifically the Mercado San Roque in Quito. We each came from different disciplinary (architecture, art history, ecology, art and design practice) and cultural backgrounds (Spain, Mexico, Germany, Canada, Beirut, India, USA), which made the team itself an exciting point of departure.

In our first semester together, Fall term 2015, we developed our research focus, methodology and bibliography as a research collective, and as individuals. In weekly book presentations and short overviews of our advances we would soon form a research collective that was looking at the Mercado from various angles -as our group had split into smaller teams of 2-3 people with similar interests.

Sinead Petrasek and I had decided to work together, as we both have a background in art theory and cultural studies, which we used as an entry point into the given condition in Quito. Our common interest was in the role of arts within the urban: how can we understand “Urban Curating” as a form of caretaking of urban struggles from within cultural practices? This curatorial perspective remained our focus for the entire project.

In the following, I will provide material that we created in the Fall term 2015, spanning from the search for a research question, methodological approaches, to reading lists…

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september 2015

RESEARCH INTEREST For my thesis project I am interested in researching the agency of artistic practices to serve as a counter practice to dominant development strategies in regards to shaping the urban physical and social space. In the case of Quito (and El Mercado de San Roque in particular) I am curious to see past and current artistic practices that address urban, public space as a form of resistance and/or that are propositional to re-envision the given site. What artistic strategies and tools can serve as an urban counter-practice (Deutsche) with a transformative potential in the context of Quito? In which ways can they spark the public to reimagine public, contested spaces? And serve as propositional mechanisms within the ongoing process of urban transformation? Can these practices be subsumed under the term “urban curating” – as a network of caretaking of urban space?

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From an art world point of view Quito is not the center of attention. This leaves us with the necessity to conduct rigorous primary research and to use the global discourse on socially engaged art (SEA) as a critical framework -- whose very own applicability and validity will have to be tested in the context of Ecuador. I would be interested in challenging the comfortable space that the Western discourse on SEA is situated in, and through the research on Quito highlight practices that are somewhat off-grid and that would potentially allow me to reframe/reassess some of the common assumptions around SEA in its European and North American hubs.

For example, what other types of conceptual frameworks exist for activities that within the Western discourse are coined as social practice? What is social practice perceived as in regions where the term doesn’t exist? How can my research aid in closing this gap without imposing a Western concept onto local and often indigenous practices?

As a practical component of my research I would be interested in putting together a curatorial proposal for an exhibition on the project itself. A potential partner for this undertaking could be the Queens Museum that is considered a hub for social practice and might be a suitable space to connect the Quito research to the wider discourse on artistic practices within public space ( Collaborative part with Sinead).

Components: ● Survey and analysis of artistic strategies (current and past) in Quito in particular ● Study of global discourse on socially engaged art – find modes of application but also gaps that show the necessity for a critical reassessment of the global discourse for the case of Quito ● Curatorial proposal (Queens Museum) with Sinead ● Transartits.nr

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september 2015

RESEARCH

RESEARCH DIAGRAM

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september 2015

DESIRED PROJECT OUTCOME My desired outcomes out of my thesis project at the Theories of Urban Practice program at Parsons is twofold: Theoretical Component: I aim at producing a thoroughly researched piece of writing that is analytical, critical and reflective. Rather than an in depth historic analysis I am interested in researching contemporary theoretical discourses (on the transformative agency of art within the urban) and use this to frame my further steps which might be more practice-oriented. To analyze contemporary artistic practices in relation to the existing discourse will help me frame future practical, curatorial work.

Practical Component: The way I see my theoretical work is that it allows me to make critical claims and to establish a position from which I can find propositional gestures within the practical realm. I want to make my research generative for work that can stand within the public realm in a different form than just in writing, e.g. curatorial/artistic work, proposal for artistic interventions, symposium, platform, strategies/concepts etc.

Additionally I would like to have a project that can help me in establishing a curatorial/artistic/design portfolio that I can use to apply for hybrid job or PhD positions.

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Connection to future practice: For my future I could imagine having a continuous relation to academic institutions e.g. by enrolling in a PhD program or at least through teaching. What is crucial for me is to have a hybrid practice that allows for theoretical/conceptual/written endeavors but simultaneously creates outputs that have a public aspect, e.g. events, exhibitions, interventions, collaborative projects etc. I would therefore be interested in pursuing a PhD position that seeks a strong theoretical framing of my work but also support my practice as a cultural producer – whatever form that might take in the end. I am interested in nurturing the notion of “making things happen” that was crucial to my previous work as a “cultural manager.” On the long run I do not think that (academic) writing will be my primary practice.

Alternatively, I could see myself in a cultural institution that produces cultural events that require rigorous research, e.g. the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, where I have interned before and enjoyed the level of discussion and the link to international theoretical and artistic undertakings.

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september 2015

BIBLIOGRAPHY Ecuador specific Readings TBA Studio Readings: Marx, Capital Grassroots and the City, Castells Methods: Research Design Radical Research

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Bibliography Socially Engaged Art (SEA) literature: Bishop, Claire

Artificial Hells

Museology text Ranciere, Jacques.

The Politics of Aesthetics (2013)

The Emancipated Spectator (2011) Baurriaud, Nicolas

Relational Aesthetics (1998)

Postproduction (2007) Berardi, Franco Bifo

After the Future Davis, Ben

9.5 Theses on Art and Other Writings Helguera, Pablo

Education for Socially Engaged Art: A Materials and Techniques Handbook (2011) Phillips, Andrea Kester, Grant

FIELD: A Journal of Socially Engaged Art Criticism.

The One and the Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context (2011)

Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art (2013)

Art, Activism, and Oppositionality: Essays from Afterimage (1998)

Anthology of Latin American collectives writing on Art Sholette, Greg

The Interventionists: Users Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life (2005)

Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture

It’s The Political Economy Stupid: Edited by Greg Sholette and Oliver Ressler (2013) Deutsche, Rosalyn.

Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics (1996) Nato Thompson

Living as Form: Socially Engaged Art from 1991-2011 (2012)

Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the Twenty-first Century (2015) Ulrich, Matthias

Playing the city : interviews Miwon Kwon

One Place after Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity (2004) Rosler, Martha

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september 2015

SHORT HISTORY OF SOCIALLY ENGAGED ART Sources: Davis, Ben, 9.5 Theses on Art Bishop, Claire, Introduction to Participation + Artificial Hells Deutsche, Rosalyn, Evictions 1910: Key practices: ·

Italian Futurist: serate futuriste (Bishop, Artifical Hells, p. 3)

1920: Key practices: • Russian Constructivist Vladimir Tatlin “Art into Life” (1918-1921 during civil war in Russia) (Davis, 9.5 Theses on Art) • First participatory artistic practices in DADA (Paris, 1921, Dada-Season, public manifestations) (Bishop, Intro, Participation) • Soviet mass spectacles can be regarded as (highly authored) collaborative experiences (e.g Storming of the Winter Palace, 8000 performers involved). S. 10 (Bishop, Intro, Participation) • In parallel: New music movements: “noise” - performed by hundreds of musicians simultaneously. S. 11 (Bishop, Intro, Participation) Around WW II and after:

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Conceptual shifts: • 1920-50: After Communist Manifesto several artist movements picked up on the idea of manifestos declaring the ill sidedness of society, e.g Dadaism, Futurism, Surrealism. P. 54 - “The history of these competing manifestos is... a history of struggle about the relation between art and politics.” Martin Puchner, S. 54 (Davis, 9.5 Theses on Art) Key practices: • 1934: Walter Benjamin: a work’s politics shouldn’t be judged by the authors statements but by the production relationships of the art work —> “this apparatus is better, the more consumers it is able to turn into producers — that is, the more readers or spectators into collaborators.” —> References Brecht, creation of situations… S. 11 (Bishop, Intro, Participation) • 1937-1947: Frankfurt School (culture industry) —> Adorno: focuses on artists struggle against commodification rather than on the working class struggle against capital. (Davis, 9.5 Theses on Art) • Pablo Picassos Guernica, 1937, as heroic example of political art. Author states that actually Picasso used many creaming figures that he had elaborated before the political event occured and integrated them into the final Guernica piece. He argues that often times the political movement an artwork forms part of

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september 2015

becomes an overriding power, trajectory and meaning. P.44 (Davis, 9.5 Theses on Art) 1960s: Conceptual shifts: • Historic developments: in the 60’s art and art criticism challenged modernists ideas of aesthetic autonomy —> exploring arts functions in society. (Davis, 9.5 Theses on Art) • Shift away from “inside” of the art work to its context —> Site-specificity, an aesthetic strategy in which context was incorporated into the work itself… S. 61 (Deutsche, Evictions) • Critical site-specific art wasn’t only interested in incorporating the context as a critique of the artwork but wanted to intervene in the given site. S. 61 (Deutsche, Evictions) —> Allowed for arts wider participation in wider cultural and social practices. S. 61 (Deutsche, Evictions) • Physical engagement of the viewer into art work due to “breakdown of medium-specific” art works. S. 10 (Bishop, Intro, Participation) • Mission to bring art closer to life by appropriating “social forms“ (e.g. Organizing garage sale, Martha Rosler, discussing politics, Beuys etc.) S. 10 (Bishop, Intro, Participation) —> Seems very close to performance art but “they differ in striving to collapse the distinction between performer and audience, professional and amateur, production and reception. Their emphasis is on collaboration, and the collective dimension of social experience.” S. 10 (Bishop, Intro, Participation) —> Form basis for more SEA projects in the 90s.

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Key practices: • Helio Oiticica, sparked a political-cultural movement: Neo-Concretist group in the 1960s. He wanted to unite European aesthetics with popular participatory spectacle of brazils Carneval. P.44 (Davis, 9.5 Theses on Art) --> created series of objects that invited for participation. One installation was called Tropicalia --> was adopted by singer Cateano Veloso --> become antheme of the Brazilian countercultural movement. P. 45 (Davis, 9.5 Theses on Art) --> the work though became more and more commercialized (while he was in exile) and entered popular art even though the artits intend was very different.

• Situationists, hybrid of art and politics as effective strategy? (Davis, 9.5 Theses on Art) •

Groupe Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV) (Bishop, Artifical Hells, p. 4)

• Jean- Jacques Lebel’s anarchic and eroticised Happenings (Bishop, Artifical Hells, p. 4) 1970: Conceptual shifts: • 1970s: neoliberalism —> redefinition of relationship between economy and the state —> social uncertainty —> revelation of Marx’ take on culture (Davis, 9.5

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september 2015

Theses on Art) • 1960/70: parallel between artistic movements (defetishizing the art object) and critical urban studies (defetishizing the spatial object) —> two inquiries about the ways in which social relations produce art and the city. S. 72 (Deutsche, Evictions) Key practices: •

Collective Actions Group in Moscow from 1976 (Bishop, Artifical Hells, p. 4)

• UK: the Community Arts Movement and the Artist Placement Group (Bishop, Artifical Hells, p. 4) 1980: •

Battlefield Projects by Bolek Grecysinski (Finkelperl, What we made, p. 1)

1990: Conceptual shifts:

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• Fall of communism and a deprived left....that had once linked political and aesthetic radicalism. S. 3 (Bishop, The Social Turn, 2006) - Today: artists barely distinguish between their work inside or outside of a gallery... S. 3 (Bishop, The Social Turn, 2006) - practices are linked by “a belief in the empowering creativity of collective action and shared ideas.” S. 3 (Bishop, The Social Turn, 2006)

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september 2015

BRAINSTORMING SESSION PRIOR TO FIRST FIELD TRIP TO QUITO

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Sinead and I were trying to find clarity in regards to our joint research interest while sketching out our key questions for our field trip to Quito.

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october 2015

FIRST FIELD TRIP TO QUITO IN OCTOBER Our first joint field trip was in October 2015, where we met our collaborators Red de Saberes („Network of Knowledge“): an activist network, which consists of researchers, artists, cultural producers, lawyers, and is focused on shifting the narrative of Quito´s largest traditional food market, Mercado San Roque. Therefore, it was Red de Saberes who first introduced us to the Mercado, its people, its traditions and tensions. From there on, we would expand our networks.

Our first encounter with the Mercado was in the afternoon after we had arrived, we first were able to see the market with its different stands, sellers, carriers, merchants, visitors, buyers, locals. We were introduced to the friends and main collaborators of Red de Saberes, and also to the leaders of Frente de Defensa de Mercado San Roque (FDMSR), an activist organisation that consists of various associations within the market and wants to form a resistance movement against the ongoing urban processes that are endangering the existence of the Mercado:

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Located in the heart of Quito, Mercado San Roque is the largest traditional food market in Ecuador’s capital, and feeds approximately one third of the city. Even though the market is a significant social, cultural and economic hub for many, it is often devalued in public perception as a site of crime, chaos and informal labor.

Current global political and economic pressures put the market under constant threat of displacement. Associations of market workers, like FDMSR, and local allied activist groups, like Red de Saberes, have come together in resistance, exposing and challenging the state and global market forces that create precarious conditions in this vital site of exchange.

For us it was key to connect to individuals from Red de Saberes and FDMSR, to understand the tensions, the histories, the various narratives of the site, the power relations and stigmas. For us, the Mercado was en entry point into Quitos urban tensions, from which we began to expand into adjacent issues, other organisations, institutions, networks and individuals. Each of the smaller teams within our group had created their own network of people they wanted to interview and establish a working relation with.

Team mates: Sinead and Sacia in Quito, refining their research questions

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october 2015

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Learning from Luis Herrera (Red de Saberes) about the history of Quito and the tensions around the Mercado San Roque

Observing protests of sexworkers and informal street vendors in the colonial city center of Quito

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october 2015

Our first meal at the Mercado San Roque in the early morning

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october 2015

FIELD WORK: INTERVIEWS Sinead and I were set to develop a sense of the local cultural scene, its key actors, its funding, its audience, its history and its present. Through our collaborators Red de Saberes we were introduced to key cultural actors, who sometimes would refer us to other cultural agents -- which allowed us to conduct 10 interviews with various practioners from around Quito: Interview Partners in Quito Pablo Ayala member of artist collective Tranvia Cero Flor Sobrero intern at architecture bureau AL BORDE David Barragan co-director at architecture studio AL BORDE Pablo Ortiz community organizer, Fundacion de Museos de Quito Luis Herrera documentary photographer and member of Red de Saberes Alegria Mateljan performance artist, Fundacion de Museos de Quito

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Paulina Leon Director of Contemporary Art Museum of Quito Eduardo Carrera Curator at Contemporary Art Museum of Quito Co-founder of independent art space NO LUGAR Ana Rodriguez Vice-Minister of Culture and member of Red de Saberes

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INTERVIEW GUIDELINES Relationship to Mercado San Roque What is your relationship to el Mercado San Roque? Can you share some anecdotes of your interaction with the market? How does it affect your work?

Could you speak more about a particular project you have worked on within/related to Mercado San Roque?

The Perception of the Market What would you say is the overall perception of the Mercado? How would a QuiteĂąo describe the market, and how does your personal perception differ?

Do you regard the market as a public space? If so, why? Can you describe it?

Who is responsible for this public space and who takes care of it?

What actors/groups can you identify and how do they/you as a cultural actor relate to the market?

How are perceptions of cultural value attributed to spaces in the city? For example, in the case of the Centro Historico.

Care-taking/Political Aspect of Practice Do you feel like your practice is a form of caring for this public site?

What do you consider the politics of your practice?

What context does your work need to be embedded in in order to be of socio-political relevance (activism, theoretical grounding)?

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Community Practice From my research so far, including conversations with others here, I understand that arts-based community practice is very strong in the city. Why do you think this is?

In small reunions with Red de Saberes and our group we would present our fieldwork to one another, share feedback, and discuss next steps. As a result of our work Sinead and I produced the following proposal while in Quito:

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october 2015

RESEARCH OUTLINE Short Project Description Collaborative research project between The New School (New York) and the activist group Red de Saberes (Quito) that is centered around the intention of drafting and implementing a social design for territorial justice around the Mercado de San Roque in Quito.

Forms of Inquiry - Participatory/ Advocacy Research (Creswell) Around a specific issue of social justice that leads to an impact/action - Collaborative and participatory: Research will be conducted in teams and seeks an engagement with other groups.

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Qualitative Methodology - Literature Review: Ongoing investigative process on literature • Socially engaged Art (SEA) in “Western” discourse vs. on the ground practice • Patrimonio/Cultural Heritage • Public Space • Curatorial work and representation • Cultural Actors / Careworkers / Curators - Analysis of Cultural Actors: • Interviews (semi-structured) We will interview key cultural actors within Quito that have a strong public engagement and/or relation to the MSR. Interviews will be semi-structured in order to allow for an open and inclusive conversation with the participants.

• (participatory) Observation In order to get a sense of the ongoing cultural processes we want to take part in events, discussions, situations that are relevant to our research. Such sites include the MSR and other cultural sites like museums, galleries, artist spaces and other suggested events.

• Documents Since we are new to the site we need to make use of ongoing and past events that relate to MSR. This includes the material history of cultural production in the city. Such documents include archival material, websites, project documentation etc.

- Visual Ethnography/ Analysis • Observation + creation of images/documentation (not as final product but as part of research process) • Potentially: analysis of already existing visual material.

Outcomes • Written report for publication • Documentation of research process • Artistic/curatorial proposal as public component URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / SASCIA BAILER / PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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november 2015

RESEARCH ANALYSIS

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Upon our return to New York we began to gather our materials, transcribe and translate our interviews, re-read our field notes, revisite our visual materials, sketches etc. In a second step we began to analyse our interviews, by re-reading the materials, by highlighting reoccuring statements, phrases, words, concepts, contradictions. We began to cluster the interview parts by thematic concepts, to mark the tensions, contradictions and strong arguments that occurred between these thematic foci. As a result of our analysis we distilled three key concepts, Visibility, Spatiality and Temporality -- in a next step we developed short essays for each of these concepts to conclude and further advance our fieldwork into a theoretical piece. With our field work and its analysis in mind we revisited our previous outlines, thesis statements, and relations maps in order to prepare for our final review at the end of the semester.

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november 2015

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november 2015

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REVISED RESEARCH DIAGRAM

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november 2015

OUTLINE OF RESEARCH FOCUS PRELIMINARY STRUCTURE FOR THESIS THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 1. Social Practice: Art as a Cultural Practice to Care of Contested Urban Sites?

Undisputed: Western History of Social Practice Hype of the Alternative: Recent Upsurge of Social Practice SEA: Between “Feeding the System” and Counter-Practice within the Urban (Deutsche, R) Art as an Urban Counter-Practice: Urban Curating of Social Matters/Sites?

2. Social Practice off the Grid: Cultural Practices in Quito in Charge of Public Matters Ecuador’s Cultural Triangle: Quito / Guayaquil / Cuenca Quito im Zwiespalt: Cosmopolitanism vs. Community Practices (Suzanne Lacy vs. Tranvia Cero) Re-thinking Terminology: 1. “I am not an Artist” 2. “Public Space?”

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ETHNOGRAPHIC WORK 3. Contested Public Site: Mercado de San Roque – Who takes care?

Site Analysis Public Dispute / Public Imaginary In Search for Words: How to re-frame the Mercado as a Cultural Site?

Past Cultural Projects 4. do -

Cultural practices around the Mercado: Modes of Entry, Modes of (Des)cuidaAl Borde: 5 Days, 200 Students Fundacion de Museos: Musical Chairs Red de Saberes: “Estar, Estar, Estar” Future interventions: Blocked Roads and Open Paths

PUBLIC DISCOURSE 5. Shifting the Discourse: Symposium on Alternative Artistic Strategies for Urban Caretaking Context: UN Habitat III The Official Position Counter-Positions and Artistic Pathways Curatorial Framework

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december 2015

REFINED RESEARCH INTEREST My research interest in Quito revolves around the concept of Urban Curating. This term that initially sounds pretentious and very institutional might actually allude to its contrary once we take the term at its root: curating stems from “taking care” and within an urban setting might allow for a re-thinking of the importance of cultural practices in relation to contested public sites or public issues. Who takes care of contested public sites that might have been neglected by formal forms of caretaking, e.g. municipalities? How is a sense of belonging, advocacy and responsibility established for a public site from within cultural practices? How do these caring practices take shape – visually and physically –, and in which way are they recognized as such? Which more formal and dominant forms of caretaking do they substitute and/or counter argue/subvert? What methodologies/strategies of engagement have been developed by these cultural practices that have proven as effective in addressing issues of neglect/social injustices?

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The given site of contestation is the Mercado in San Roque located near the Centro Historico in Quito, where much of the municipal funds, conservational care and tourism is directed. The Mercado de San Roque has a history within the city of being unwanted, always on the edge of eviction/dislocation, governmental neglect and societal disregard. It nonetheless has fulfilled a crucial role in the cities food system over the past 34 years in which it has fed up to 30% of Ecuador’s capital. It has a high percentage of indigenous workers population and the market is deeply intertwined with indigenous cultural practices, incl. festivities, that off-spring in the rural Andes where most of them have migrated from – and continue to migrate back to. The market follows a complex structure of self-organization into different associations according to labor tasks in which issues within the market are addressed and where advocacy for the market’s secure spot within the city is initiated. From the outside perspective of the rest of the city the Mercado is not seen as a rich social and cultural site but a place of theft, corruption, mafias, prostitution and insecurity.

Over the past years several artistic and cultural practices have worked on and with the Mercado addressing various issues of this complex social space. These practices have either no or only loose associations amongst each other and used very different (temporal) strategies to engage with the market. Some of these initiatives were of institutional nature and others came out of the space of independent art practices. Can these practices be considered as forms or urban curating? As practices that demonstrated an alternative mode of care for a contested public site within the urban?

If so, what do we gain from reframing those practices? What does it allow us to see or pursue that otherwise wasn’t possible? Does it allow for a radicality of cultural practices to emerge? Does it show the inefficiency of governmental caretaking? Does it re-conceptualize art as a tool for care and therewith add value to otherwise easily dismissive practices? Does it politicize care? Does it empower otherwise lose practices and give cohesion to them? Does it allow practices to be part of the cultural realm that otherwise would be excluded?

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december 2015

END OF TERM PRESENTATION

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Extracts of slides from our presentation:

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december 2015

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december 2015

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CONCEPT

january 2016

CONCEPTUAL PHASE This semester was full of learning, discovering, re-iterating, re-considering and questioning common beliefs -- and most importantly it was a time that required all of us researchers to be courageous in order not to lose faith in our research undertaking and interests. We had to maintain focused and firm about our research endeavours: when diving into a new field of research it is very easy to get sidetracked and to shift focus.

At the end of this semester we had to make sure to find our thematic focus and to follow this research line. For Sinead and I this meant: how do we translate our theoretical research and field work on “Urban Curating” into a thesis project that would demonstrate both strong research and at the same time establish a public curatorial platform? This process will be documented in the Conceptual Phase of the project.

Our key questions on artistic caretaking practices within the urban realm would enter a new conceptual stage in Spring 2016 which continued in Fall 2016: How can this research undertaking be developed into a curatorial platform that allows a wider audience to partake in these essential questions of how the urban is lived and transformed via creative practices?

Our goal was to produce an exhibition with the final projects of the team that would highlight critical urban practices as a form of caretaking of pending matters within the city of Quito. An open call for curatorial proposals for the Aronson Galleries in the Sheila Johnson Design Center came in the right moment. We decided to apply as a team – while I would take on the main curatorial work as my thesis project.

Sinead would assist this process, while focusing on an extensive research-based written piece for her thesis.

The conceptual phase of developing a curatorial framework for this exhibition took almost one year. In the following section I will document key steps of this working phase.

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january 2016

EXHIBITION PROPOSAL FOR ARONSON GALLERIES

EXHIBITION PROPOSAL FOR ARONSON GALLERIES Name(s):​ ​Sinead Petrasek, Sascia Bailer, Tait Mandler, Gamar Markarian, Masoom Moitra, Mateo Fernandez­Muro, Maria Morales, Alexandra Venner

Email and phone number of primary contact person:​ ​Sinead Petrasek, Sascia Bailer (primary contacts) Sinead: ​petrs019@newschool.edu​; 646­645­6691 Sascia: ​bails551@newschool.edu​; 646­207­0030 Department/School/Division:​ ​School of Design Strategies; Parsons Status (faculty/staff/student):​ ​Graduate Students If student, name of faculty advisor (mandatory): ​Miguel Robles­Duran, Associate Professor of Urbanism, School of Design Strategies Project Title​: ​ ​“El Mercado San Roque: The Value(s) of a Market”

CONCEPT

Project Description​ ​(500 words) that addresses the following): ● What is the curatorial concept or idea behind your project/exhibition/workshop? ● Why are you applying for ​this​ exhibition space? How will this location contribute to the project? ● Who is your audience? Please be as specific as possible. ● What do you hope to achieve and to communicate to a viewing public? ● Please be as specific as possible about the curriculum, open call or review process or any mechanism you are using to solicit work.

We, 8 graduate students from two urban programs within the School of Design Strategies (Design and Urban Ecologies & Theories of Urban Practice), are applying to SJDC for the Aronson Gallery space to exhibit our work that exposes and challenges uneven urban development with a focus on Quito, Ecuador. The work comes from a yearlong multi­disciplinary collaborative thesis project on the contested urban space of the San Roque Market site located in Quito. This food market, which is primarily organized by an indigenous population, feeds 34% of the city and is therefore central to the city’s alimentation. Yet is under threat of speculation due to its proximity to heavily regulated touristic sites in Quito’s historic centre. We therefore understand the San Roque Market as a locus that allows us to comment on wider contemporary urban issues of agriculture, cultural production, education, housing, and indigenous migration and labor.

This exhibition (September 2016) will be a timely contribution to an international dialogue around urban development and its problematics that will be prompted by the UN Habitat

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CONCEPT

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III conference in Quito, set to take place in October of 2016. This conference is the largest global conference on urban issues and convenes every 20 years. Through our partnership with the ​Ministry of Culture of Ecuador​, we will also reproduce this exhibition and host a symposium in Quito as an official event to coincide with Habitat III.

The curatorial concept behind our exhibition is the creation of a space of dialogic intersection, bringing residents of Quito, students and faculty at The New School, and a wider public into an international conversation on urban processes. The focus of the exhibited work will be on process and methodology, so that attendees are invited to enter into the project and ultimately contribute to it. ​This will include ethnographic media (photography, audio, and video), visualizations of our urban design methodologies and proposals, conversation tables, and a public symposium of urban thinkers and activists.

We describe in detail how we will accomplish this in the following section on exhibition design.

By holding exhibitions and conversations in both New York and Quito we hope to highlight the fluid relationship between curator, artist, designer and audience, moving beyond a static exhibition of facts and information. Instead, our project is invested in the idea of “trans­local” knowledge­exchange, responsive to multiple dialogues. Ultimately, the work returns to the site where it began to share ideas and strengthen alliances between those most directly affected by uneven urban development.

Our audience includes students and faculty at the New School, especially those across disciplines who are engaged in critically examining social justice in regards to urban space and development, and other urban activists, scholars, designers, and artists in New York. Within the context of UN Habitat III, we anticipate a wide interest in alternative methodologies and designs for understanding and affecting urban processes.

Importantly, the outcomes of this interactive exhibit will be brought to Quito and Habitat III so that the New York component of this project is put directly into conversation with an Ecuadorian and international audience.

The location of the Aronson Galleries on Fifth Avenue within a busy New School building is ideal for this exhibit as it can attract the interest of New School students and faculty as well as passersby. Proximity to the Kellen Auditorium is also ideal for the public programming aspect of the exhibition.

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Dates Requested First Choice:​ ​September 14​th​ – 30th Second Choice:​ ​September 14th ­ end date negotiable (It is important that we can exhibit our work in NYC before we all travel to Quito for the UN Habitat III Conference in mid­October) If neither of these choices is available, should the committee still consider your proposal?

Yes​/No Is there a reception, opening event or any other public program?

Applicants are responsible for the set-up, strike, permits and catering for events.

CONCEPT

Yes, we plan to have an opening reception. Please find the details in the section on public programming below.

Exhibition Design or Space Layout​: What will your project/exhibition look like? How does your project process/exhibition design take into account the fact that the gallery is on display to the street OR the usage of the hallway as a transient and interstitial space? Please consider signage, position of project elements, the kind of activity that is visible from the street, framing of the window, sound etc.

It is understood that this is preliminary and subject to change; however, an indication of how this will exist in space is important. If this is a curricular project or workshop, how will the process and activities be made understandable and visible to visitors, whether the Parsons/TNS community or the general public? If this is in conjunction with a panel or workshop, please consider what the exhibited content or points of engagement will be for the general visitor.

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CONCEPT

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The curatorial intention is to provide the audience with the visualization of our work process in such a way that the viewer feels invited to enter in a dialogue with the questions that have guided or emerged from our project. Through multimodal methods, we address the stratified but deeply interconnected urban ecologies of Quito Ecuador.

Rather than presenting a quantitative analysis of facts and hard data, we want to highlight the process of a critical but open interrogation of the urban condition.

The project will be displayed as an invitation to a conversation, a social space, and a space of learning and experience. As such, we will have a variety of material, some more akin to curricular work (i.e. data visualization, radical cartography, interviews) and some which is based on social engagement. Ideally, the exhibition material will inspire a New School audience to use the space as a hub for organizing in the lead­up to the Habitat III conference, with talks and tours acting as points of engagement.

To manifest this intention, we envision the following: 1. Recreating the Marketplace as A Guiding Principle for Social Interactions: As a guiding element through our exhibition we will recreate the sensation of the market place, not in terms of a physical mock­up but in the way in which conversations and interactions within the gallery space are crafted. From the street and from the hallway one would feel invited to peek into a welcoming room with little sitting arrangements and tables (in the spirit of San Roque’s traditional lunch tables) on which conversations are held and knowledge and experiences exchanged.

Specifically, we will lay out two round tables with several chairs in the main gallery space. For one hour everyday, we will be present at these tables serving Coca Mate (traditional Andean tea beverage) and encouraging viewers to join us in conversations.

Each table will have a graphic novel that offers a commentary and asks questions to facilitate conversations when visitors arrive at the conversation tables. The hallway can act as ‘the street’ outside the market, thus documenting ‘informality’ in its various manifestations. The signage would also be crafted accordingly.

Location: Main gallery space (center)

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CONCEPT

​ Social spaces in the Mercado de San Roque

2. Multi­Sensorial Ethnographies Experience Hubs: In alignment with the spatial complexity and experiential density of a market place we will install “experience hubs” that consist of small booths/corners in which sound collages, images, sketches and video clips are displayed that invite the audience into the experience of the market and its contestations.

Location: Main gallery space (corners on the west wall)

Documentary Film: A short documentary film will be on display at the far end of the corridor. It will focus on the dialectics between agricultural and housing struggles in Ecuador and the relationship between the rural landscape, indigenous communities and the urban hubs to which the goods are sold.

Location: far end of hallway, big wall space

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3. Timeline and Relational Maps Timeline: An expansive timeline with interactive elements will be on display in the hallway.

Alternative forms of narrating histories will be illustrated in relation to the interconnectedness of stories and topics of interest. An interactive element will allow for the audience to co­construct this narration and will simultaneously contribute to an ever­changing visual appearance of the timeline that continues to keep people interested over the time period of three weeks.

Location: Hallway

Maps: Relational concept maps that highlight our research process will be shown on the walls in main gallery space.

Location: Main Gallery Space

4. A Bilingual Exhibition Catalogue To produce a bilingual exhibition catalogue is part of our understanding of what it means to produce a dialogical exhibition that does not only perpetuate english as a dominant language in the discourse around uneven urban development. By including Spanish, we envision to be welcoming of local Ecuadorian community groups and other visitors with Spanish as their first/primary language.

Location: distributed at the entrance into the main gallery.

CONCEPT

How does this project involve Parsons and/or New School students and/or faculty? Please be as specific as possible about the courses/faculty members with whom you are working or who are interested in engaging with the content of this project?

School of Design Strategies: Miguel Robles­Duran (Associate Professor for Urbanism) is the leading professor for the graduate Studio 3 thesis course in which we are conducting the research in Ecuador.

Art, Media and Technology: Lydia Matthews (Professor of Visual Culture) will conduct an Independent Study with Sinead Petrasek and Sascia Bailer in Spring 2016. The focus of the course will be on the curatorial strategies of this research project.

Observatory on Latin America (OLA) Maria Carrizosa (Coordinator OLA, Global Urban Futures project, GPIA Teaching Fellow for Slums and Urban Development, PhD student) has raised interest in working with us more closely as it connects to her research focus.

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Milano (GPIA and Urban Policy programs): Apart from Maria Carrizosa, who is a Milano PhD student, we have also engaged with several students from the different urban programs in Milano (grad/undergrad) in the build up to the Urban Thinkers Campus, under the direction of Michael Cohen.

CONCEPT

The New School at large: This project seeks to extend the content, methods, and themes of this course, linking them to pedagogy and practice in the field of urban design, practice, and theory across Parsons, The New School, and an interested New York community.

As The New School at large becomes an institution recognized for urban research, this project will highlight the strength of this interdisciplinary focus across divisions and schools. The UN Habitat III Conference will be a key platform of engagement for various faculty and student groups.

UN Habitat III / Urban Thinkers Campus ­ as cross­New School event: With an eye to the UN Habitat III conference, the largest global forum on contemporary urban issues, many faculty and students at The New School are engaged in preparation towards this summit. This project will build on the dialogue generated at the Urban Thinkers Campus conference that was hosted by The New School in October 2015.

Urban Issues ­ a multidisciplinary concern: Additionally, this project and its public programming will serve to invite faculty and students whose work deals with the urgent themes of Habitat III (resistance, migration, settlement, violence, resilience), but approaches these issues from a different disciplinary background, i.e. art, performance, documentary, poetry, philosophy.

What public programs have you planned to bring students, faculty and other audiences into the gallery?

Opening Reception We plan to initiate a facilitated conversation between the various key intellectuals, activists and students who are actively conducting urban research at The New School, particularly those with a focus in Latin America. The differences in methodologies, theoretical frameworks and practices will be highlighted and confronted, offering a platform with which to critically assess the upcoming UN Habitat III conference policy units. This reception will also be an occasion to invite a keynote speaker and other performers whose work intersects with the themes of the exhibition.

Public Programming for Duration of Exhibition

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The idea is to use the gallery as a space to share knowledge. How can a provocative atmosphere of academic tension be included in our discussion? Programs will seek to situate the researcher/practitioner within the work. Programs include:

­ short, thematic talks with invited guests from other institutions (i.e. NYU Urban Democracy Lab, Right to the City Alliance ­ details see list of speakers) ­ documentary screenings ­ tailored tours of the exhibition given by volunteers with different disciplinary or professional backgrounds ­ cross­programming with Ecuadorian community organizations in NYC

What are the project’s technical needs (equipment and personnel) and how do you intend to deal with them? Do you have a plan for student staffing of the gallery for periods during the show? This is not ​required ​but it’s usually effective for the public and fellow students to learn about the project from one of the participants.

CONCEPT

Technical Needs: Our project requires technical equipment, such as projectors (no screens, we will project onto the wall). We are estimating 2­3 projectors and 5­7 headphones as needed.

Personnel: We are not expecting to be in need of personnel other than ourselves and potentially other student groups that we might connect with. We will offer self­guided tours once per week and a graphic novel booklet for commentary and questions when none of us are present.

How will your exhibition/project be funded? Please list the projected source of funds. The SJDC may be listed up to $1000 only for production/materials support.

USS: As students engaged in a public event for The New School community we expect to get funding for our exhibition through USS.

Financing of public programs via Collaboration: We expect to team up with different cultural/political institutions that might be able to cover for honorariums and travel of some of the invited speakers while we provide

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the platform and the communication. One of the potential collaborators is The Rosa­Luxemburg­Foundation NYC. Cross­School Grant: For the Spring 2016 application cycle, Miguel Robles­Duran plans to put forward a request with other faculty members towards the design of a public platform to coincide with the UN Habitat III conference in October 2016 in Quito. This platform would provide an alternative forum for discussion of urban practices that do not fit within the framework of Habitat’s policy papers.

Ministry of Culture in Ecuador / General Consulate of Ecuador: Additional funding is projected to come from the Ecuadorian Ministry of Culture, as their mandate is to prepare an exhibition in the National Museum in Quito to coincide with the Habitat III conference. Additional resources could fund the presence of Ecuadorian speakers in the public programming of the exhibition in NYC. We are also preparing steps to reach out to the General Consulate of Ecuador in NYC via the Ministry of Culture in Quito.

Please attach the following documents to your application. Please check, if included: The following are required of all applications: X CHECKLIST: If your project is an exhibition, please provide a checklist of works to be included in the show, with dimensions and specific display needs if possible.

For traveling shows, include installation shots. In the case of proposals for exhibiting new works please include diagrams, sketches or brief verbal descriptions of proposed works.

CONCEPT

X APPLICANT BIO: Please provide a one-paragraph bio for each applicant.

Include the following, as applicable​: X COLLABORATORS: If this project involves external collaborators such as guest artists, designers, speakers, lenders or partner institutions, are you in contact with them? If so, please provide written evidence of their consent to participate.

X SPEAKER LIST: If your project involves a discussion/colloquium, please provide a list of speakers with a one-sentence description of the topic each will address.

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SIGNATURES:

IF PARSONS: This proposal is forwarded for consideration to the SJDC Committee and has been reviewed by the School Leadership.

__________________________________________ (Chair of School Exhibition and Public Programs Committee)

APPROVAL OF FACULTY ADVISOR (if student application) _____________________________________

IF NON-­‐PARSONS I support the consideration of this proposal for the Aronson Galleries.

_________________________________ (Dean of your division)

APPROVAL OF FACULTY ADVISOR (if student application) _____________________________________

Parsons: For further application queries, please contact the chair of your school’s exhibitions and public programs committee (List on p.1) and not the SJDC. Non-­‐Parsons: Please contact the SJDC for additional information at sjdc@newschool.edu .

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CONCEPT

APPLICANT BIOS Sascia Bailer Studied Communication and Cultural Management (BA) at Zeppelin University in Germany and is currently in the Theories of Urban Practice (MA) Program at Parsons. She has worked in an Arts Foundation in Southern Germany promoting emerging artists by establishing a platform to perform, publish and exhibit their work. She has freelanced as an assistant to several artists in the realization of various projects. She has created and participated in many different social and cultural initiatives, film festivals and exhibition projects around the globe, always interested in the the socio­political power of the Arts. Currently she seeks to research this topic within the urban realm — can art develop a socio­political potential that can transform the urban?

Mateo Fernández­Muro Architect in 2011 from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) and Master Degree in Advanced Architectural Projects (MPAA) in 2013 from Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid (ETSAM), where he is now a PhD candidate researching on the political relation between spatial fictions and conflict in the post­democratic city. He is co­founder of Displacements Journal (www. displacementsjournal.com) and collaborates with Cultural Landscape Research Group (GIPC) at ETSAM. Currently studying a Master of Design and Urban Ecologies (DUE) at Parsons The New School for Design, New York.

Maria Guadalupe Maria is a Mexican architect that has worked in the design of vertical housing and in the diffusion of sustainable practices for large scale projects in Mexico City. She has been invited to publish and lecture some of them. Now, she is trying to accomplish better social and environmental strategies in a more complex and urban scale through the Design and Urban Ecologies Program.

Tait Mandler Tait is an ecological anthropologist exploring methodologies for design interventions into socio­spatial issues of justice and inequality. Tait likes participatory co­creation of alternative and disruptive systems of political organization around issues of land rights and housing. Tait holds a BA from the New College of Florida and will complete an MsC in Design and Urban Ecologies at Parsons in 2016.

Gamar Markarian Born to an Armenian­Lebanese family in Beirut, Gamar received her BS in Landscape design and Ecosystem Management in 2005 and taught and worked at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon and EARTH University, Costa Rica. in 2008, Gamar co­founded Atelier Hamra; a landscape architecture office in Beirut Lebanon. She is currently mastering urban design at the American University of Beirut, and Design and Urban Ecologies at Parsons / New York.

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CONCEPT

Masoom Moitra Masoom is an architect, urban­activist, artist, researcher, dissenter, designer and student organizer from Mumbai. She works on urban issues that involve participation in collaborative and creative struggles for claiming the right to the city for those who are overlooked by the state and its allies.

Sinead Petrasek Sinead completed her BA in the Honours Art History program at McGill University in Montreal.

She has worked for the Girls Action Foundation, volunteered with Social Planning Toronto, and has extensive training in post​­secondary student support. Recently, she was a Research Fellow with the Curatorial Design Research Lab, a hub for curatorial practice across The New School.

She is a strong advocate for the transgressive potential of Humanities scholarship, and is currently in her final year of the MA Theories of Urban Practice program. She is investigating the slippery intersections of art and labour as manifested in Quito, Ecuador. Sinead hopes to continue testing academic practice and curatorial work.

Alexandra (Zanny) Venner Reigns from the city of Vancouver on the West Coast Canada. She is motivated by big mountains, people, and the processes of city­making. As a young woman balancing a rich city life with never­ending mountain invitations, Zanny is learning to find a way to let adventure, education and work coalesce and resonate into a single way of seeing and acting in the world.

The life she lives, as an elite athlete, urban practitioner, and backcountry traveler, is her launching point.

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SPEAKERS LIST Speakers & Topics

David Harvey

Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York

Opening speech: Spaces of Hope / Spaces of Resistance

Raúl Zibechi

Radio and print journalist, writer, militant and political theorist

Societies in motion: Non Capitalist social relations and nonstate forms of power in Latin America.

Silvia Federici Professor emerita and Teaching Fellow at ​Hofstra University

CONCEPT

Reappropriating social wealth after neoliberal accumulation: communal fights in rural and urban Ecuador.

Eduardo Kingman­Garcés Anthropologist, FLACSO­Ecuador Networks and communal bonds in urban indigenous communities in Quito: hospitality and reception beyond fear and stigmatization.

Manuel Bayón Radical geographer, Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales, Quito The right to the non city: territorial rights against spaces of capital in Quito rural populations.

Luis Herrera / Ana Rodríguez Investigador, Red de Saberes / Vice Minister of Culture of Ecuador

Front of Defense and Modernization of San Roque Market: empowerment and self­organizing in the heart of Quito.

Jeanne van Heeswijk Visual artist and curator

Urban Acupuncture: art in counter to urban renewal

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LIST OF COLLABORATORS Please find written confirmation attached.

CONCEPT

Red de Saberes, Quito Quito­based, multi­disciplinary research group concerned with the uneven development around the market. Members of the collective are architects, artists, cultural producers, scholars and activists.

Contact person: Luis Herrera

Ecuadorian Ministry of Culture, Quito Contact person: Ana Rodriguez, Vice Minister of Culture

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CONCEPT

CHECKLIST OF NEW WORKS: Conversation Tables​ (​Dimensions variable) We will lay out two round tables with several chairs in the main gallery space. For one hour everyday, we will be present at these tables serving Coca Mate (traditional Andean tea beverage) and encouraging viewers to join us in conversations. Each table will have a graphic novel that offers a commentary and asks questions to facilitate conversations when visitors arrive outside of our presence at the conversation tables.

Multi­Sensorial Ethnographies​ (​Dimensions variable) Experience Hubs: “Experience hubs” consisting of small booths/corners in which sound collages, images, sketches and video clips are displayed that invite the audience into the experience of the market and its contestations. Our extensive field work has allowed us to gather valuable narratives on social justice, cultural participation, education and political struggle​; ​these “experience hubs” will allow for the audience to tune into the stories and enter an intimate space of listening, understanding and empathy.

Documentary Film: 7­15 min., loop A short documentary film produced by Gamar Markarian will be on display at the far end of the corridor. It will focus on agricultural land reforms in Ecuador and the relationship between the rural, indigenous communities and the urban hubs to which the goods are sold.

Timeline and Relational Maps​ (​Dimensions variable) Timeline: Alternative forms of narrating histories will be illustrated in an expansive timeline relating to the interconnectedness of stories and topics of interest. An interactive element will allow for the audience to co­construct this narration and will simultaneously contribute to an ever­changing visual appearance of the timeline that continues to keep people interested over the exhibition period.

Maps: Relational concept maps that highlight our research process will be shown on the walls in main gallery space. We may choose to display these as several smaller maps spread out over two walls or as one integrated large­scale map.

Bilingual Exhibition Catalogue To produce a bilingual exhibition catalogue is part of our understanding of what it means to produce a dialogical exhibition that does not only perpetuate English as a dominant language in the discourse around uneven urban development.

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CONCEPT

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CONCEPT

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february 2016

FINALISTS: OUR PROPOSAL WILL BE CONSIDERED FOR THE PROGRAM

CONCEPT

In late Spring we received the joyful message that our proposal would be considered to form part of the public exhibitions of the Sheila Johnson:

Sinead and I met with the director of the galleries, Radhika Subramaniam, and her team to discuss our proposal and to make further adjustments. We agreed to meet again in couple of months with a revised curatorial proposal and to decide on a final timeslot for our exhibition. Initially, we had applied to exhibit our project in September 2016 - which would have been right before the international UN Habitat III Conference in Quito to which we travelled, and with which many of our discussed issues dealt. For us this would have been a strategic moment in time to make use of the public discourse that was focusing on UN Habitat and Ecuador as a host country. Eventually, our allotted slot was in January / February 2017 -- the benefit of that timeframe was that it gave us more time to plan the exhibition and that the projects were further developed by then. Since many of us attended the UN Habitat III Conference and many critical social forums that occurred in parallel, the projects of the team had been presented and further adjusted in these international platforms. In this sense, the additional time allowed for a more ripened conceptual framework and more developed projects to be exhibited.

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OVERVIEW OF TASKS TO BE ADDRESSED ________________________________ CURATORIAL AND RESEARCH PHASE New Curatorial Proposal - Shift away from Habitat III / Potentially return to urban caretaking as a guiding principle to showcase artistic practices within the urban to counter neoliberal urban planning policies (thematic focus up for discussion with group!)

- Maybe use Quito and NYC as two points of departures for a global conversation on urban/artistic forms of caretaking - Use student work in conjunction with artist’s work (tbc) - Use the theme of the exhibition for a reflective, critical essay (= thesis)

CONCEPT

Spreadsheets / Benchmarking / Global survey - Make a list of artists who work on these topics - List of past/upcoming exhibitions with similar interests - List of researchers, authors, books and catalogues on these topics - List of artists, reseachers, activists who we might want to invite conversation tables Exhibition Design: - Request up to date floor plans - Maybe use the program sketch up or a small model to plan the exhibition (advantage of doing it digitally is that we can share the plans. But it might be annoying to learn the program first) - List of Display Materials: Will you guys use different display materials? Or what the gallery space has available? Make sure to talk to Radhika and Daisy about what the gallery already have (tables, wires, wood, glass display, mannequins…)

Finalize this process and come up with - Final artist/project list - Final List of works (what is, whats the contact /where to get it, donation/ purchase, needs to be printed- labels included/ needs to be mounted, sizes, signed agreements of loans, description of the piece) - Final speakers list - Preliminary schedule for events - Final curatorial proposal - Final texts for booklets and wall text - List of Display Materials for the exhibition space - List of who does what

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_______________________ ORGANIZATIONAL ASPECTS Budget /Finances - Make a spreadsheet that contains the expected costs (materials, printing (artwork, graphic design, wall texts, brochure), open night catering, photographer/videographer) - List of potential partners and funds to apply for funding (SDS, USS, VLC, Rosa Luxemburg, Ministry of Culture Ecuador, Crowdfunding etc etc etc) Equipment/ technical stuff - What additional technical requirements do the art works bring? TV audio - headphones - screens - projectors ETC ETC

CONCEPT

On Site assistance - Who from the Ecuagroup can commit to assisting in local urgencies as receiving/collecting materials, going to the printing shop, talking to the designer, helping with the installing?contacting artist...doing meetings...? → Make chart with people’s schedules and chores they agreed on doing beforehand - Potentially have an intern or undergrad student who wants to be involved in this curatorial project?

- Who can commit to the mounting of the exhibition and the take down? Who will give tours and turn on the videos everyday etc etc etc?

Documents - TNS has a lot of agreements and forms you need to make sure you ask for prior to your event. For example, the opening night, if you’re planning to serve food and wine, you need an alcohol permission as well as request to use the space outside of the gallery for your event. _______________ COMMUNICATION - Media strategy: where will it be promoted, with what materials (print / website), what newsletters and forums can we get on? What TNS groups will be interested?

- Texts for booklet, website, wall text, artist works, biographies, thank yous, interviews etc ________________ POST - EXHIBITION: AN EXHIBITION CATALOGUE (by Mai 2017) - Contains a curatorial essay (“thesis” sascia) - Interviews/Conversations with e.g. Ana Rodrigues, Luis Herrera, Martha Rosler, Jeanne van Heesweijk, David Harvey Exhibition views and description etc etc.

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CONVERSATION WITH TEAM: IS OUR PROPOSAL FEASIBLE? ________ TOPS 1. Team Work / Commitment - Do you want to be part of this exhibition - and are you certain you will find the time and energy to be part of it? (I know we once received a definite YES from everyone of us but it seems things are changing) Exhibition is scheduled for - Jan 17 until Feb 7 (S + S will confirm with Radhika) Responses of everyone: Gamar: Physically in NYC, committed to after hours and weekends.

Tait: Physically in NYC, time and interest to commit. After January things unclear.

Mateo: Physically in NYC, time and interest to commit (pending on a final schedule).

Sinead: Physically in NYC, committed to it Sascia: Physically in NYC, committed, part of her thesis Maria: Physically in Mexico, production of project but cannot be physically present for opening Zanny: doesn’t know where she will be, can provide her own projects Masoom: Physically in NYC, but cannot be committed / can work on weekends

CONCEPT

- If time/energy might be rare in which way should we proceed as a team? Which ways of involvement would you wish for?

No commitment --> no follow up - no decision making power (if someone wants to be kept in the loop he/she has to make that clear otherwise the project will proceed without further communication - otherwise it’d be impossible to advance) - How will the ones who commit make sure they have enough energy and resources to make this happen?

There hasnt really been an answer. I guess it has to be discussed further.

2. Team Work / Communication - Which channels of communication should we pick for decision-making and updates? (skype, email, basecamp, whatsapp) - In which intervals do we update one another? Bi-weekly, monthly, weekly? E.g. Fixed time for bi-weekly/monthly skype dates?

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Bi-weekly meeting necessary (even if not everyone makes it).

No more basecamp → rather google drive. Maybe test the program slack - easy for messaging. Otherwise we whatsapp. For docs: google drive.

Conclusion: Bi-weekly meeting: appear.in Docs: Google drive General conversations / updates: whatsapp Longer messages / exceptions: Emails 3. Theme / Format - Revision of initial curatorial proposal: What themes have emerged from your research that weren’t present before? What about a juxtaposition of MSR and a similar spot in NYC (e.g. local forms or urban caretaking)?

- Format: Do we still agree that we want an exhibition PLUS some sort of a symposium / talks / roundtables etc.?

- Participants: Only TNS students (showcasing students works) or take in “professional artists” or other project presentations from outside?

CONCEPT

Habitat III as part of exhibition: G+T project can be geared towards habitat but can be outside of it as well.

M+M, directly connected to Habitat.

S+Z, doesnt require a focus on Habitat Option: The projects can be tweaked to fit different umbrella concepts. Use habitat 3 as a frame. What does it mean to think about urban development vs. urban caretaking. What discrepancies arise?

Program: Some specific events, not full symposium Just thesis projects or more: Go beyond TNS, plan something mayday space, connect Quito and NYC community 4. Tasks - How do we direct tasks/responsibilities amongst us? Should I make a list of tasks and everyone can “sign up” for something (e.g. funding, PR, etc etc)?

Urgent Matters:

Funding - Who has ideas of where to get more funding? Please keep your eyes open for

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funding opportunities (who has experience with funding from USS http://www.ussnewschool.com/funding/)? Are we interested in crowdfunding (https://www.indiegogo.

com/projects/futurographies-art#/)? → needs to be planned further / discussed again - Partners - who else can we pull into this exhibition project that can help us with organizational matters, PR, funding or by providing speakers / artists etc. → needs to be planned further / discussed again - Assistance - should we try to get an intern? Someone who can assist us along the way and be granted the title “curatorial and research assistant”... or something… ? → intern not really feasible 5. Next steps - Fill out “List of work”- sheet [everyone! please ASAP] - Make a “List with tasks” [SB] - Make a budget spreadsheet [who wants to get this started?]

- Look into other projects, artistic work that can be pulled into our exhibition [S+S] - Get back in touch with Radhika [S+S] - Check Drews lists - maybe it has funding options [everyone!]

Desired Outcomes?

Exhibition Events (not full symposium) Exhibition catalogue in addition to thesis book ➢ Website? e.g. http://guatemaladespues.org / this might be an option https://omeka.org

CONCEPT

6. ➢ ➢ ➢

___________

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NEXT STEPS: CONVERSATION WITH ADVISOR With these initial thoughts in mind I went into a virtual meeting with my primary advisor Miguel Robles-Duran and came out with a clearer understanding of my next steps and began to address the key issues raised and to fulfill the assignments: ___________ Skype session with Miguel September 9th, 2016 - Research Proposal - feasibility, aspects to consider Yes, feasible - move ahead - Secondary advising - Lydia, Evren, Radhika, Carin Kouni Yes, chose one with curatorial expertise. Potentially even in Switzerland/ Germany - Curatorial theme - guidance, input, thoughts, readings, partners/ connections I have to start research phase, develop distance from the projects, take critical decision of what can enter the exhibition and what not.

- Funding options for exhibition Put together a blurb...dates… not more than 1 page… with all info…. We need 1000 USD. - Formalities: deadline, scope of work, link to other thesis people in TUP/DUE Deadline for Thesis is around May 20th. He has the outline for thesis requirements and he can send it to me.

CONCEPT

Assignments for the next two weeks: 1. CURATORIAL RESEARCH Read the thesis of the other students very carefully and develop a critical eye for it.

Task: read them, apply criticism and write a paragraph on each of the projects Foundation for decision-making: what goes in what, what doesnt Next step” diagrams with visual material 2. BENCHMARKING / IN SEARCH OF REFERENCES Find around 5 projects that are similar to my undertaking. Later we will then focus on 2-3 of them.

Potentially visit the archive of the design museum in Zurich. Look at other diagrams / analyse the structure, content, curatorial concept etc.

3. DETAILED TIMELINE Include skype meetings, visual diagrams, etc

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________ In response to Assignment 1: Projects / In search of a common denominator: S+S Location: - Centro Historico - MSR Key Themes: - Social justice and art - SEA / medicación comunitaria - Political activism / aesthetics - Allied struggles from within the cultural sphere → connection with G+T: networks of resistance!

- MSR: urban ecology shifted by artistic practices - Authorized heritage discourse Outcome: - Critical essay

CONCEPT

M+M Location: - Pueblo Kitikura - Urban outskirts of Quito Key Themes: - Social justice / indigenous rights - Self management and autonomy of the comunas - Indigenous communities in tension with urban life - rural/urban divide - Mediacion comunitaria Outcome: - Maps / economic + geographic tools - T+G Location: - MSR Key Themes: - Social justice and landownership - Historic research into landownership (MSR) - Food monopolies, unequal distribution Outcome: - Critical pedagogy / video/workshop

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Masoom Location: - Queens Museum - MSR Key Themes: - Social justice and art - SEA / medicaciรณn comunitaria - Gender relations - Bilingualism / quechua + spanish - Local networks in Quito and NYC - Indigenous networks of knowledge - Food as a mediator Outcome: - Workshop series as part of IMI Zanny

CONCEPT

Location: - Centro Historico - MSR Key Themes: - Social justice and urban development - Tourism driven development - UNESCO / heritage discourse - Slow violence - Buen vivir - Political and economic analysis Outcome: - Critical visual narrative as pedagogical tool Common key words: SOLIDARITY networks between disparate groups, social Justice, mediacion comunitaria, food, pedagogical tools, critical heritage discourse, indigenous communities, Materials: Introduction passage - turn it into a video clip Print zannys booklet or turn it into a video clip ________

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FIRST CURATORIAL SKETCH Prismatic Explorations The road a researcher decides to head out onto is vague. Slippery. It’s full of doubts. It’s a winding road – with its destination unknown. The choices he will have to make will have to come from within the process. He will have to adjust, alter its route. Befriend himself with cul-de-sacs and roundabouts. This frenzy of research cannot be left without consideration when wanting to exhibit a year-long-research project and its outcomes. The decision-making, the plurality of options when delving into the urban as young, critical and curious researchers want to be reflected in the way the exhibition is designed. Urban research is not a mono-directional undertaking. It’s reflective, discursive, sensitive, flexible and in motion. The way an urban researcher needs to navigate the city terrain, the exhibition viewer needs to navigate the exposed projects. Different choices will lead the viewer into different directions. The aspects he will uncover will differ from his neighbor’s.

The site of investigation will shine in a different light from each angle. Only after an extensive exploration of the diverse research projects the given site will function as a prism -- a prism that breaks the grey, monotone light of academia into a colorful world of experience that is able to shed light onto related subjects of interests.

CONCEPT

--Narration as a guiding principle Narration can be a way to bring guidance into an exhibition space. But also character, personality. It can create a sense of interpersonal contact.

It can also be experienced as authoritative, as dominant over the viewer’s own personal experience. This mono-directional notion of narration can be broken up when the narration itself gives optional routes to take. When narration itself is a puzzle that the viewer can re-assemble in whichever way interested. When the narration is flexible enough to follow the audience’s needs rather than to presuppose their preferences.

--Networks of Care A network of care is a network to care of. In order to experience the production/reflection on networks of care within a contested city space the viewer has to undertake caretaking actions for those to surface and become lucid. Networks of care are intangible and invisible. They are a thought construct with a social manifestation. Care is a term that is often associated with intimate spaces of the home, family, interpersonal relationships. Public space is where acts of care can occur but that is not primarily thought of as a space to take care of. In welfare states the government is the primary caretaker of public matters. Whether of physical or political nature. In neoliberal states the private with its insatiable thirst for prospective return from

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CONCEPT

investment has developed other mechanisms of caretaking. Caretaking is a means to an end. A means to yield profit from the beautification of a public place. In an activist’s mind caretaking acts are often linked to survival. To resistance. To the maintenance of a status quo that speaks to their socio-cultural identity. Or to thriving for betterment of their social condition without a necessary direct interest in monetary betterment. To value the public site for its non-monetary value. Care in this last regard is practiced interpersonally, in public, for the public. It’s not particularly a means to an end. The wellcared-for public space with its increase of socio-cultural value is the main purpose of many activist-driven caretaking practices.

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CONCEPT

In response to Assignment 2: I began to look at different past and present exhibitions around the globe that were focusing on Latin America and social/urban issues. I created a spreadsheet with bits of information on each exhibition, publication or institution that could serve as a reference point. In a second step I took a closer look at only 3-4 of them and used those as inspirational sources for my own curatorial work:

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CONCEPT

In response to Assignment 3: I produced a detailed and extensive spreadsheet that contained multiple tasks in a temporal layout, which would allow me to keep track of the different tasks and to advance my project within the given timeframe.

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FUNDING REQUEST TO SDS Exhibition in the Aronson Galleries // Ecuador Project // Jan 17th – Feb 7th, 2017 Exhibition: The Ecuador team – consisting of six DUE alumni and two TUP students/alumni – has been working intensively for over one year on putting together an interdisciplinary research and design project that will culminate in an exhibition in the Sheila Johnson Design Center. We have successfully applied to the Aronson Gallery space and have been granted an exhibition slot from January 17th – February 7th, 2017. Under the advising of Miguel Robles-Duran I will curate this exhibition as part of my final thesis (to be submitted in Spring ’17). I am very excited about showcasing this long-term research of DUE and TUP alumni, and to critically engage with the wider scope of this undertaking. The exhibition will be accompanied by public programming (performances, lectures, conversations, roundtables) that expands on the showcased work. I believe that this exhibition opens up a unique space to visualize the collaborative graduate work of these DUE and TUP – not only within the university but also on a city scale.

CONCEPT

Budget: This exhibition is solemnly organized by students and alumni (no commercial or other institutional partners), and therefore relies on funding from within The New School. We expect to be in need of a budget of approx. $4,500 in order to account for all the exhibition materials, printing, shipping, documentation, publicity, food and drinks at the events, honorariums and transportation for guest speakers of public programming, etc.

Calculation of Budget: $1,000 - Funding through the Sheila Johnson Design Center (secured) $3,000 - Funding of public programming through USS (in the process of applying) $1,500 - Lack of funding ___________ $4,500 Total need of funding The above preliminary calculation of the necessary funding shows a lack of $1,500. As this exhibition is a unique opportunity to provide visibility for these two urban graduate programs I kindly ask the Urban Council to support this project by providing the lacking funds of $1,500. The quality of the exhibition – and therefore the public outreach of DUE/TUP – heavily depends on the resources that we can allocate to put this exhibition together. As the curator of this exhibition and as a graduating student of TUP I would greatly appreciate the Urban Council’s support. _______

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CONVERSATION WITH SECONDARY ADVISOR Skype Meeting with Lydia - - - -

Sept 26th, 2016

Whats the site Whats the narrative / multiple narratives allowed?

Interactive moment What am I “licensed” to do?

Option: take the mercado de san roque as the main site - and present the projects as different lenses to look at the market - like a prism - create interactive moment for the viewer to take sides and positions → inspired by Solnit exhibit at Queens Museum “Non-Stop Metropolis” (multiplicity of reading of one specific site) and the Potosi exhibition (multiple narratives that guide through the very same exhibition) Prism - you reveal infinite sites! - excavating the hidden layers of the city At Queens Museum → multiplicity of the experience is mapped within the museum Methodologies - how do you make it legible? Start with one site - help to open up the stories and the questions that are related. → prismatic set of images that comes off of the middle → often times these exhibitions are very text-heavy - make it legible and interactive!

The iconography is already there! - whats your in-point? → Follow your instinct - how to filter the information is the next step - so that the narrative can come up

CONCEPT

Curatorial options: What are you licensed to do?

ART HISTORIAN: Showcase the process of knowledge production, step by step and present its outcomes, almost like a documentary, without gaps Vs PRACTITIONER: You use the knowledge production as the raw material for the curatorial praxis. E.g. retrospective doesnt reflect every single step. You can chose an angle, a perspective, make an assessment → writer of a story! → get this approved by professor AND by the team

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Tasks: 1.

Finish the Interviews - identify the lines that you find most compelling shape the narrative - whats worth displaying - make it manageable

CONCEPT

2.

Exhibition: think of models of display

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CONVERSATION WITH PRIMARY ADVISOR October 5th, 2016 Skype with Miguel Funding approved from SDS - 1.000 USD for materials, printing etc - I need to go through the Urban Council to access that money Questions: Have you found a common denominator? Are you looking at the projects as part of themselves or as part of a collective? Or as a pedagogical experiment? → focus on the neworks/partnerships that were necessary to make this project useful? Is it about a collective working on urban issues or students way to look at the urban?

Whats the framework?

Pedagogy as a loaded term → not to take it so literally - more like “academic” → How to do a meaningful academic project that has a meaning outside of its structure?

Important: Pedagogy not in the sense that we went there to teach them something but to collaborate!

STUDIO VS. JUST A PROJECT

CONCEPT

→ If studio option: How to address the complex issue within the urban from within academia - and to draft possible scenarios for future engagements → Sascia: I am interested in re-creating the experience of the researcher (the being lost, the multiple choices along the way) via the experience of the viewer in the exhibition. So the exhibition design needs to mock the structure of the resaerch projects and at the same time allow the visitor to gain a deeper understanding of the work. The visitor is a researcher, an investigator into modes of investigation. Its an exploration of how to explore the urban in an unknown setting. → This would literally be: to construct a theory of an urban practice (of the urban researcher/designer) → Miguel: has a praxis within it and gives something to the viewer.

Exercise: write a paragraph about this down Advise: Dont try to find the underlying systematic behind each of the projects - it wasnt designed that way so it would be difficult to find - try to find a general thread through the exhibition and take it from there/ Add writing assignments to the spreadsheet

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CURATORIAL IDEAS - FIRST DRAFT

CONCEPT

I envision an exhibition space that is multi-directional and de-centralized, one that allows the viewer to follow his interest, his curiosity into a web of knowledge hubs and bits & pieces of information - to eventually create a personalized exhibition experience and very personal knowledge acquisition — that is so personal that the viewer will remember his tour much better than a general, standardized route through an information-flooded exhibition space. The keywords of “Legible Labyrinth” and “Prismatic Exploration” have surfaced in my research and have become key in my curatorial process: The former because I intend to make a very information-heavy/dense project “digestible” and legible by only offering the bits and pieces that correspond to the personal interest of the viewer. From a general perspective this might seem confusing and labyrinth-like - yet this fragmentary breakdown is exactly what makes it legible. The later refers to the idea that the site of the Mercado can be explored via the multiple projects and research practices - and hence come to see this seemingly ordinary, unspectacular market in its multi-facets, its socio-political richness and geographical connections, its global/local contradictions; the market as a prism that shines light on other related issues. This is where the public programming will come in as a social space of expansion from the academic research practice centered on Quito towards a wider field of practitioners who deal with similar issues but with a different methodological approach and towards a different location. Preferably most of those practitioners would be centered on New York as to create a link of empathy and relevance between Quito and the local, New-York-based audience.

This curiosity-driven exhibition experience based on the concepts of “Legible Labyrinth” and “Prismatic Exploration” reference back to the underlying principle of the research team: the dialectical method, “(…) aiming to discover truth through examining and interrogating competing ideas, perspectives or arguments. Dialectical research can be seen as a form of exploratory research, in that there is not so much a research hypothesis to be tested, but rather new understandings to be developed.”⁠1 This forms a shared experience between the researcher’s experience on the ground and the experience of the visitor who will de-construct, re-assamble and re-test the knowledge production of the research team- and by doing so develop a new iterative production of meaning of the work. The aspects of giving multiple options of how to narrate/read/navigate the exhibition the viewer is inspired by Solnit’s trilogy and exhibition “Non-Stop Metropolis” at the Queens Museum where one specific site (e.g. New York City) is explored and presented in its multiple realities.

Furthermore, the curatorial work of the “Potosi Principle” at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in collaboration with the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid has been inspirational: the exhibition team has created three narrations that can guide one through the exhibition – and lets the show shine in a different light each time. Even the “instruction pieces” of Yoko Ono have been inspirational. The imaginative power of words, narration and instructions becomes very clear here. And this instructive guidance doesn’t appear authoritative but inspiring, imaginative and stimulating. This is the type of guidance through the “legible labyrinth” that I envision. In this regard, the guidance through the show can be read as a choreography, where the walk through the exhibition becomes a dance with the provided information and knowledge - led by attraction, engagements and disengagement.

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CONCEPT

More concretely, I envision the exhibition to be entered by the main entrance and immediately invited into an intimate setting like a simple set of table and chairs (in resemblance to the one’s at the market) that is full of different information pieces which speak to the condition of the situation in and around the market, in and around Quito, in and around Ecuador and Latin America - on indigenous conditions of life in Quito and abroad. Here the Mercado San Roque near Quito’s Historic Center will function as an intriguing first site of encounter with the multiple issues mentioned.

After this first “briefing” the viewer will be lead to a next point (tba) on which he will find 2-3 research questions (or simply questions of interest that will guide his future path through the exhibition). He will be asked to follow the question he is most interested in and via color coding he will be lead to a new information hub, smaller and more specifically molded to that interest. For example: The viewer might have chosen the question: “How can we aid in constructing networks of solidarity amongst the disparate indigenous groups to strengthen their political power?” This question will lead him via color coding to the already mentioned smaller information hub where the viewer can gain more insights into the condition of the indigenous groups, how their struggles are mainly separate — and kept intentionally separate in order to weaken their collective power. The viewer then is given another option asking with which “tool” / “form of practice” he would like to see this issue addressed.

He then can follow the path of e.g. “Via a critical pedagogical tool” and will be lead to the project of Tait and Gamar who have produced a film on the struggles of the two markets in Quito.

The viewer will be able to watch the film in parts or in full length - I believe that if a chain of questions precedents the encounter with the final project – that this work then can be encountered with much more interest, understanding and patience to actually look at the details of the work. I am aware that this is a rather time-consuming curatorial approach that doesn’t allow for a quick scam through the exhibition.

But on the other hand: if I did make the exhibition in a way that one could quickly glance over it, the crucial aspects couldn’t be communicated – not even to the ones that did take their time. From here, the viewer then has the option to return to information hub and explore different tools - or even switch his “research question” and dive deeper into the projects. He then is a full absorber of the prismatic experience!

The outside space along the corridor needs to have a different function. The intimacy of the “Legible Labyrinth” cannot be carried out onto the hallway. It needs to be used as a place to screen videos, interact, share stories, make connections to sites in NYC etc. This will have to be developed further.

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_research

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CURATORIAL IDEAS - SECOND DRAFT URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / TERRITORIAL URGENCY Radical Research into Quito’s Traditional Markets

CONCEPT

Introduction “Urgencia Territorial” is the guiding principle of the Quito-based activist collective “Red de Saberes” (Web of Knowledge): their activism and engagement follows the call of the territory — “territorial urgency is the demand that emerges from the social context and asks us to position ourselves from our place of work.”⁠1 Such a case of territorial urgency has been the Mercado San Roque — a traditional food market in the heart of Quito; mainly run by indigenous communities it feeds 1/3 of the city and yet is under constant threat of removal, political pressure, and social disapproval.

This space of daily transactions between wholesalers, small vendors, of carriers, food peelers, of children and elders, seems so ordinary that it almost renders itself trivial. Yet it is exactly this “normality” of the Mercado that allows it to speaks to the condition of Quito as a city and of Ecuador as a Latin American country — torn between neoliberal and alternative economic approaches and political ideologies. To understand the everyday of Mercado San Roque allows us to understand the urgency of this economic, socio-political, cultural terrain of exchange. Simultaneously, the metaphor of the (local) market as a fragile site of exchange and transaction alludes to its global counterpart of economic markets. This interplay and interdependency between global politics, economic frameworks and local urban policies becomes tangible in the Mercado San Roque; urban territories like the traditional food markets are valued and shaped according to the larger market scenarios that encase it. Whereas socio-cultural traditions of such a site do not correspond to the value ascriptions of capital-driven market forces, they are therefore rendered irrelevant — and, the site turns into a vulnerable territory in demand of urgent action. *** Project Scope This exhibition is an investigation into critical urban design and research practices that search for local entry points for action within a larger framework of neoliberal urban policies, uneven development, social and territorial injustices. In a yearlong research process eight students of two Urban Graduate Programs at Parsons School of Design in New York have been in active engagement and collaboration with Quito’s food markets, indigenous communities, artists, activists, scholars, cultural and political leaders, and critical thinkers. Five projects have been conducted by small research teams or individuals — in collaboration with the local activist network “Red de Saberes” (Web of Knowledge) who have been involved in the Mercado San Roque over several years. Each of the project addresses a different urgency that is manifested in territory of the market and its surroundings — spanning from neoliberal exploitation politics, to violent gender norms, increasing urbanization of indigenous lands, unequal landownership, and unjust cultural heritage and tourism discourses. With each territorial urgency comes a different methodological practice (“transACTION”) to address the needs of the site and its people, ranging from critical pedagogical tools, to mapping, critical writing, and arts-based community organiz1 “La urgencia del territorio es la demanda que emerge del contexto social y nos pide posicionarnos desde nuestro lugar de trabajo.” page 79 in: Contradecirse una Misma: Museos y Mediación Educative Crítica, Anahi Macaroff and Alejandro Cevallos, Eds. (Quito: Fundación Museos de la Ciudad, 2015).

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ing. The projects presented are “formally done” in an academic sense but continue to evolve in the multiple relationships that have been built over the group’s various visits to Quito. This exhibition is yet another way to maintain these projects active and to foster their continuation by exposure to practitioners, critical minds, activists, artists and designers who share our interest in social and territorial justice. ***

CONCEPT

Curatorial Vision I envision an exhibition space that is multi-directional and de-centralized, one that allows the viewer to follow his interest, his curiosity into a web of knowledge hubs and bits & pieces of information - to eventually create a personalized exhibition experience and very personal knowledge acquisition — that is so personal that the viewer will remember his tour much better than a general, standardized route through an information-flooded exhibition space. The keywords of “legible labyrinth” and “prismatic exploration” have surfaced in my research and have become key in my curatorial process: The former because I intend to make a very dense project “digestible” and legible by only offering the bits and pieces that correspond to the personal interest of the viewer. From a general perspective this might seem confusing and labyrinth-like - yet this fragmentary breakdown is exactly what makes it legible. The latter refers to the idea that the site of the Mercado can be explored via the multiple projects and research practices - and hence come to see this seemingly ordinary, unspectacular market in its multi-facets, its socio-political richness and geographical connections, its global/local contradictions and urgencies; the market as a prism that shines light on other related issues. This is where the public programming will come in as a social space of expansion from the academic research practice centered on Quito towards a wider field of practitioners who deal with similar issues but with a different methodological approach and towards a different location; most likely with a focus on New York.

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This curiosity-driven exhibition experience based on the concepts of “legible labyrinth” and “prismatic exploration” reference back to the underlying principle of the research team: the dialectical method, “(…) aiming to discover truth through examining and interrogating competing ideas, perspectives or arguments. Dialectical research can be seen as a form of exploratory research, in that there is not so much a research hypothesis to be tested, but rather new understandings to be developed.”⁠2 This forms a shared experience between the researcher’s experience on the ground and the experience of the visitor who will de-construct, re-assamble and re-test the produced knowledge of the research team — and by doing so continue the iterative process of knowledge production.

CONCEPT

The aspect of giving multiple options of how to narrate/read/navigate the exhibition the viewer is inspired by Solnit’s trilogy and exhibition “Non-Stop Metropolis” at the Queens Museum where one specific site (e.g. New York City) is explored and presented in its multiple realities. Furthermore, the curatorial work of the “Potosi Principle” at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in collaboration with the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid has been inspirational: the exhibition team has created three narrations that can guide the viewer through the exhibition – and let the show shine in a different light each time. Also the “instruction pieces” of Yoko Ono have been inspirational.

The imaginative power of words, narration and instructions becomes very clear in her work. And this instructive guidance doesn’t appear authoritative but inspiring, imaginative and stimulating. This is the type of guidance through the “legible labyrinth” that I envision. In this regard, the guidance through the show can be read as a choreography, where the walk through the exhibition becomes a dance with the provided information and knowledge — led by attraction, voluntary engagements and thoughtful disengagement.

2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_research

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CONCEPT

** Exhibition Design / Choreography More concretely, once the visitor enters the Sheila Johnson Design Center (SJDC) he will encounter himself in the hallway that eventually leads to the Aronson Gallery space. The hallway will be used as an introduction into the thematic approach of the exhibition: the double-meaning of the word “market” will be explored via a large diagram with figures, sketches, visuals and glossary terms that alludes to the global financial market and the local food market showcasing its interdependencies, the political act of daily transactions/exchanges, the vulnerability of markets as fragile socio-economic spaces. The smaller wall might give space for the screening of a timelapse-video of the Mercado San Roque as an intriguing image into this complex set of social and economic relations.

This thematic introduction serves as a point of entry for critical design interventions, which, within in the context of this exhibition, might be termed “transACTION”: as a form of action-based collaboration that is founded upon exchange of knowledge and skills between the researchers and the various agents within the market scenario, aimed at transforming the status quo via meaningful and thoughtfully directed actions/interventions.

Upon the entry of the visitor into the exhibition space (Aronson Galleries) he will immediately find himself between an arrangement of wooden boxes that pile up on either side. There’s an umbrella to one side and boxes and sacks with fruits/vegetables on the ground (feasibility of this needs to be discussed). It is clear: He has entered a market scenario. Yet, he doesn’t encounter items on sale but a network of

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CONCEPT

information that via various “transACTIONs” becomes accessible to him. Upon looking into the boxes the viewer will be confronted with small screens that show video material from a market scenario in Quito, as he will learn. Through signs, booklets and audio pieces the viewer will be able to get a sense of the condition of the Mercado San Roque as an example of urban contestation and socio-economic injustices.

Overall, the diverse information pieces speak to the condition of the situation in and around the market, in and around Quito, in and around Ecuador and Latin America on indigenous conditions of life in Quito and abroad. Here the Mercado San Roque, near Quito’s Historic Center and UNESCO World Heritage site, will function as an intriguing first site of encounter with the multiple territorial urgencies mentioned.

After this “briefing” the viewer will be lead to a next point in which he has the option to choose between 2-3 research questions that seek to address the urgencies of the Mercado; via color coding he will be lead through the exhibition according to his interests. For example: The visitor might choose the question “Tourism can boost a weak economy — yet what are the effects on urban spaces that don’t fit the harmonious image of a city that the government wants to portray for the tourists sake?” If this question is written on a green card he will be asked to follow to the simple set of chairs and tables (in resemblance to the one’s at the market) which might have a green table cloth. Here he will be invited to take a seat and look through various materials that provide deeper insights into the condition of the global political and economic situation and and how it trickles down on the market in form of development pressures etc ( keywords: new production matrix, new tourism, UNESCO world heritage, tension between historic center and MSR, redevelopment around the mercado, effects on the comunas in Quito etc). The viewer then is given another

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option, asking with which “transACTION” (tool/form of practice) he would like to see this territorial urgency addressed. He then can follow the path of e.g. “via critical pedagogy” and will be lead to the project of Zanny who has produced diagrams and a booklet/comic that break down the the relationship between the government’s aggressive branding of Quito as a tourist destination and the increasing marginalization of the Mercado. If the viewer chooses “via arts-based community practices” he will be lead to Sinead’s project in which a set of cultural practices is explored that have been trying to highlight the socio-cultural values of the market that are not acknowledged within the strictly economic parameters that dictate the urban development of Quito...

CONCEPT

I believe that if a chain of questions precedents the encounter with the final project – that this work then can be encountered with much more interest, understanding and patience to actually look at the details of the work. I am aware that this is a rather time-consuming curatorial approach that doesn’t allow for a quick scan through the exhibition. But on the other hand: if I did make the exhibition in a way that one could quickly glance over it, the crucial aspects couldn’t be communicated – not even to the ones that did take their time. From here, the viewer then has the option to return to the set of chairs and table (“info hub”) and explore different approaches - or even switch his “research question” and dive deeper into the projects. He then is a full absorber of the prismatic experience!

Additionally it would be interesting to integrate a reading corner into the exhibition setting that holds books and research material that served as a theoretical foundation of our work. Sinead has suggested that her project space could serve as such a research/reading corner as it is a primariley text-based work. For now, I want to keep this in mind as an idea and see how the curatorial concept evolves. From a conceptual point of view it is essential to integrate objects / settings of social interaction from the market into the exhibition space; not to “fake” or exotisize the market scenario but as a way to pull the viewer into the atmosphere of the site and to communicate the condition of the space via visual and tangible objects and arrangements of social interaction (--> visual analysis of the site / ethnographic analysis)

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*** Public Programming For the public programming I am interested in two aspects: 1. To provide a space in which these kind of urban practices can be theorized, critiqued and reflected upon - as a way to do justice to the title of my degree 2. To create a “link of empathy” between the issues in Quito and the issues in NYC, where most viewers will reside in —> as a thematic expansion from the site of the Mercado in Quito towards issues around territorial urgencies in and around New York and an exploration of practices that deals with these urgencies.

Ideas for Formats: Critical (self)-reflection of research process with the participants This could be an open format where the Studio group and the audience have an open conversation about what the project was, what the challenges were and how else it could have possibly been done…This could happen at the end of a guided tour, for example.

CONCEPT

Roundtable of practitioners: artist’s and scholar’s encounter with the Mercado This could be a roundtable discussion with e.g. David Harvey, Martha Rosler, Jeanne van Heesweijk - who have been to Quito and the Mercado as part of an conference in August 2015. What artistic/academic/political strategies do they use when encountering an unfamiliar site like the Mercado? What methods of engagements have they developed, etc.? This could be a very inspiring discussion within an academic setting / art and design school, as most students and faculty can connect to these issues —> how to make your practice meaningful in the “outside” world?

Workshop/Session on “new urban research methods” in collaboration with UNDP Zanny has been in contact with someone from UNDP and they were interested in hosting a session on new urban research methods. Potentially this could be incorporated into the public programming as a way to contrast institutional and academic (and more “radical”) research approaches. Zanny’s says this project is currently on hold but if we consider it interesting we could pick up the thread.

As a continuation of the Quito work: Workshop “Film - lived experience of solidarity” - Tait and Gamar Tait and Gamar have emphasized the “iterative process” of their project and are interested in the continuation of film workshops as self-reflective devices. Either they could share their experience of documentary filming in Ecuador or they could schedule a workshop in NYC connecting to the techniques and subject matters from Quito.

Workshop “Quito en NYC” - Masoom with Queens Museum Masoom’s workshops with the IMI (Tania Bruguera/Queens Museum) happened in URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / SASCIA BAILER / PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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NYC with the Ecuadorian community. We are thinking about how to link our exhbition and the local Ecuadorian community via joint workshops or another exhibition in Queens. The exhibition at SJDC could be another occasion for a next workshop session and/or a reflective session/rapport of what those workshops where about.

Potential Partners for Public Programming Vera List Center Queens Museum May Day Space 596acres.org CUP Potential Participants / Invitees: David Harvey - on his experience / expertise on Quito and his involvement in the research process Martha Rosler - on her experience in Quito and politically engaged, NYC-based artist Jeanne van Heesweijk - on her experience in Quito and socially engaged artist Rebecca Solnit - on cities and the multiplicity of experience Carlos Motta - NYC based artist who has a history of critical engagement with Quito and Latin America overall, also TNS faculty Luis Herrera - member of activist network Red de Saberes, very active collaborator in the research process, documentary photographer also in the Mercado Ana Rodriguez - member of activist network Red de Saberes, former Vice Minister of Culture of Ecuador, could potentially give a lecture on “Urgencia Territorial”

CONCEPT

***

Funding Overview of the secured and potential prospective funding opportunities: $1,000 - SDJC (towards tbc) - secured $1,000 - SDS (towards material costs, printing, speakers) - secured $2,000 - USS (towards public programming) - to be requested ______ $4,000 - prospective funds

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CONVERSATION WITH GALLERY TEAM AND ADVISORS Curatorial Proposal Presentation: I was asked to present the curatorial proposal Radhika had questions to the concept of Urgencia Territorial → a way to position ourselves, a demand that is coming from the mercado - it demands something from us! And what is that something? → we need to think about that in order to navigate the exhibition Hallway: dont start with readings Miguel speaks of the trip to Quito: event in the market, students present their work - workshop - exchange → blurred the lines between the indigenous communities and the students. → double exhibition at the market - exhibition should work there as well Red de saberes - how do you want to introduce their practice?

How to bring in the market experience? Webcam? Skype session with the market?

“Real time exchange” (note: what would be the benefit for the people of the market to do such a thing??? Thats an excotisation of their lives and work...)

Navigation through exhibition → artificial mechanism Rather think of 3 stories that you want to tell - use the visuals to tell a story!

CONCEPT

Radhika: How does research unfold in relationship to a place that you only go for a short period of time?

How does develop a relationship to a place far away? → something with a more global appeal!

--> The place has an urgency and you are trying to respond to it from your place of work!

How do you develop such a relationship with the market? In a very simple and direct way!

Ecuador works at its own logic TRANSACTION: power, language, temporality, who is on the ground, who is in the exhibition?

Play on the idea of a market - exchange of ideas, experience, expectation, discounts, density, window shopping → develop an interesting glossary → market vocabulary and apply it to research → how would it upset the way in which research is done? → it needs a curatorial layer - what does it mean to take knowledge serious - research enterprise, market place…

Territorial exchange - dialogue as basis of this!

Problems / struggles that you have encountered along the way are useful - it may exist in the questions - how do the questions lead us - you frame the questions in a specific way - or as a board game?

EXCHANGE: ask the viewer, they have to return something in exchange - a question for the next viewer - participartoy approach.

Miguel: This situation is familiar to us all: foreign partner in research - complexity of situation,

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changes in government structures, not able to adopt quickly enough, could open up beautiful dialogue.

Lydia: Image of the market - how do you want to enter that space? Or as a juxtaposition?

Sense of transition/ transaction - how do you recreate this experience? You have to come through the image? (note: this is actually not how the market experience feels… its a very shallow or maybe metaphorical recreation… the market really jumps at you, makes you quiet because the whole movement and circulation of it is so powerful!)

Miguel: market of exchange - is always a market of possibilities (note: way too flat) Radhika: Bring it in - surprise us with a different exchange! - the sacks, how can you integrate other objects that resemble the market experience here? Pallets?

No tables - only a site of exchange of knowledge (research) → MSR as a site to think about these exchanges - the change of scale, geography, point of view, your body…

Projects are dense, they need a lot of time - we dont want you to edit this for us!

You have to find out what will keep someone going? What will keep the audience interested?

CONCEPT

LAYER: Students are part of exchange? How do you develop a relationship? A research question?

LAYER: This is how we did it We need a few teasers….extracts from field notes, how do you develop a relationship to this place? How do you begin to understand?

Display, visualization, diagram, methods - could be chronologically → process based! Miguel: the final outcomes are almost irrelevant, its all about the process Radhika: you dont need too much more.

How many visuals do you have? How much text?

Distill the projects - wall labels? Is there additional info material?

Next stage: look at each of these projects - wall text and video enough? Research part + ephemera - do you have notes etc - dont go crazy with production but maintain coherence!

Could be a long shelf - the zines could be inside to take away - different spreads inside - you want people to walk - objects make you move!

Hallway: game like charts and terms - image of the market - like welcome, stream it 24/7 Lydia: Mentions Laurie Anderson performance Habea Corpus at the Armory Show - where live streams were mixed with video and the viewer was unsure what was happening now, and what had already happened. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/monumental-musical-events-alex-ross → tricks/live/not-live → loop!

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It could take in the streets - previously taped hallway Luis Herrera as the person to be in charge of such an undertaking

CONCEPT

Miguel: Critical: no tables No navigation Emphasizing the conditions of exchange 1. Different layers of the experience of exchange 2. The projects themselves → helps the navigation -> the research process Instead of colors, play with typography - small font=2. Layer, bigger font=1.layer Decide how many layers you want “Tools” of exchange - hierarchies to navigate from one project to another….

Analyize thesis projects as part of your thesis Key takeaways for Sascia: Simplify The navigation through the exhibition emerges from the arrangements and the content of the objects Try to take a closer look at the projects and see what they demand, curatorially Decide on 1-2 layers and work with that Find a link between a critical reflection on academic research abroad, the content of the works, under the curatorial frame of urgencia territorial → and the notion of exchange can maybe be integrated into a participatory moment. Double-meaning of market should still surface somehow….

Make urgencia terriitorial the overarching curatorial frame - make it part of your thesis to invesitage what that concept actually means and make it manifest in the exhibition Really think how to bring the market experience into the exhibition - and with what means? Is this a form of exploitation of the market? As a spectacle? Whats the use for the market? Do I prefer the loop idea? 24/7 live cam brings the notion of surveillance from the “west”....really ambigious move! I would want a more sensitive approach. Not sure whether the time lapse is more sensitive…. It would be a glimpse rather than ongoing surveillance.

Exhibition in the market: would have to be very carefully crafted. The same proposal certainly wouldnt work at all. With what intention would there be an exhibition at the market? Who would benefit? What is the need of the market? Probably to share content → in conversation and not in form of an exhibition.

URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / SASCIA BAILER / PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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ANALYSIS OF EACH PROJECT After this very long and intense conversation about the curatorial framework of the exhibition I had to take a step back in order to really think about the crucial elements of the exhibition - and how to best translate these into an exhibition space for a diverse audience. After many back and forths I drafted another curatorial framework, but first I took time to dive back into each of the 5 projects, to analyse and critique them -- and to envision fruitful forms of display.

CONCEPT

Masoom (Re)production of urban knowledge in San Roque This thesis focuses on two social struggles that are evident in the Mercado San Roque and its surrounding neighborhood: gender violence primarily against the migrant women in the market incl. the (re)valuation of women’s (reproductive) labor, and the resistance movement around bilingual schools for Kichwa and Spanish. The author proposes an autonomous network of care that consist of “Schools of Hope” – this proposal addresses the needs of both of the social struggles and therefore focuses on the migrant women and their children. For her, this is a way to link rural, indigenous and urban ways of living and to honor these very own indigenous systems of knowledge production. The author finds a way to connect to the Immigrant Movement International (IMI) of the NYC-based Queens Museum with the San Roque neighborhood by creating workshops with Ecuadorian residents of Queens who face similar challenges as the workers of the Mercado San Roque. This linkage appears as testing grounds for the relevance and functionality of her proposed “Schools of Hope” and as the creation of a network from NYC towards the indigenous community in San Roque.

The author has activated not only the site of the Mercado San Roque and its neighboring bilingual school, but has connected to the community-art scene of Quito such as of New York with its link to the local immigrant community. These various sites have allowed her to use storytelling as a tool to shed light on the individual lives and their relevance to speak to a more general condition of migrant women and kichwa culture in Quito and abroad. As results of her thesis we have a written proposal of the Schools of Hope, insight into her NYC-based workshops with IMI, personal sketches and diagrams that illustrate her written work, such as timelines and maps that contextualize her work.

The author’s work is compelling due to its honest, direct and simple language with a narrative style. Her view onto the site is very much shaped by her personal experience and one feels close to the author when reading the piece. She manages to build bridges between the rural & the urban, the indigenous cultural scene and the “high culture” of Quito and New York Critique: - Not clear how the cultural exchange feeds back into MSR and how and when and by whom this concept of Escuelas de Esperanza will be implemented - who does it depend on, e.g. If Masoom doesn’t do it, who else could and actually would do it?

-It is unclear how the issue of gender inequalities within Ecuador (San Roque in particular) can be discussed by men as well and not only discussed amongst women (e.g. In the IMI workshops) - whats the proposed course of action to reach a different

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level of awareness also amongst men towards these issues?

Intriguing: - The link she created between Quito’s struggles and the struggles of the Ecuadorian community in NYC —> support network / cultural exchange - The use of cultural practices to address socio-political issues and to create networks of solidarity - The little sketches to illustrate the struggles of San Roque - Possibility to continue the workshops with IMI as part of the programming of the exhibition / show the exhibition in Queens as well Tools used / Research Approach: - Urban pedagogy, storytelling, drawing/visualization — her research approach has a strong social justice appeal and connects the personal experience with the more global prevalence of gender violence and the conditions of migrant women. The struggles of the women in San Roque are local and yet global in the sense that they exist just as much in Queens, NYC. Her way of relating to a place far away is by acknowledging its particularities but also its global resemblances that allow her to address these issues at various sites, not just at the initial research site.

CONCEPT

Territorial Urgency: - What urgency does the territory place upon (her) research? —> San Roque appeared to her as a site where the conditions of the migrant women were very precarious and experienced gender violence and non-valuation of their reproductive labour. Furthermore, the lacking right for bilingual education has affected the livelihoods of indigenous communities in and around the market — her proposal “Schools of Hope” seeks to address these two struggles (as cultural and social urgencies immanent in the territory of the market) from her pedagogical and research position.

Proposed works: - Escuelas de Esperanza: Project presentation that includes a print out of the flyer, images from the workshop, hopefully some of the drawings that were produced + other media that might exist (video + voice) — should be embedded within an explanation of 1) what the condition at MSR is that needs to be addressed 2) how this project serves as a “cultural exchange” and feeds back into both sites (NYC + Quito), 3) what IMI is - Little sketches in form of a zine or an animated video - speaking to the precarious situation of migrant workers in MSR and NYC and their struggle for bilingual education - One event / link with the Ecuadorian community in NYC - exhibit our work there too Agreed upon works (Oct 30th, 2016): 1. Animated drawings “Escuela de Esperanza” (explaining the project, condition of the market out of which it was created, NYC-part) 2. Field stories: - Sound recording - interviews from the school in San Roque (Manuel, founder of school, CAC etc) - Visuals from IMI workshop: sketches (flyers + diagram of curriculum —> originals).

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- Field notes: digital journal and/or blog (printed/digitally) 3. Interactive moment / feedback (blank cards, where people can give feedback concept needs to be developed) 4. IMI workshop in January (new material could feed into exhibition too) Events: Potentially invite IMI/Queens Museum to participate in panels / establish link with Luis/Prerana / community Gallery in Queens

CONCEPT

Options of Display: - The Escuelas de Esperanza presentation could work as an installation within space (doesn’t have to be flat on the wall - it can work in shelves or on pinboards etc.)

- The zine can stand in a little shelf, be pinned to the wall or hanging from the wall.

- In terms of content it has proximity to Sineads (cultural agents, pedagogy), Zanny (slow violence, focus on local/global relations, cultural segment, use of pedagogy), Tait and Gamar (focus on local knowledges, creating networks of solidarity, use of pedagogy) Conversation Notes (Oct 30th, 2017): Cultural exchange: it intended to be much bigger and also happen in San Roque.

After school programs in NYC in informal, migrant workers in NYC. The idea is not the geographical location, its about the struggles that are present here as well. Very similar conditions exist here. The idea was to develop a curriculum with kids in NYC and test it out in Quito. Kichwa radio station in NYC. Language barrier was a big problem. Consulate program is connected to CUNY. The club could be in charge of the curriculum - that was the long term idea. It needs a permanent commitment. \ Workshop: transferring the theories into practice, how kids were learning and applying those in their own work. The scale became too big. 1 workshop over a month. 4 session. It was supposed to be caregivers, some men, some brothers…

Food because it was originally intended to be in the school next to MSR. The thing that connects children and parents even though parents and kids grew up in different cultural settings. Divided into a couple of phases: dont only put in your agenda, but incorporate their agenda. Someone teach their kids during the summer, math and english skills. How can math be taught via food. Why doesn’t the school in SR not interact more with the MSR? They were talking about stories, crops that their family grew traditionally. Some audio might exist. Develop research skills. Next step was more injustice related. Went to farms, watched movies. A big food feast at the end of the workshop. Like a minga. Also they have potlucks in their traditions.

Exhibition: transcend that space…. Think about that workshop. Voice recordings of the workshop.

Culture plan flyers. Interaction what it means to them… what would you do for arts and culture in NYC. People could write their responses. She doesn’t thinks it ethical to put up images and their drawings. Consent of parents. Have shots without faces.

Sketches / narrative with subtitles in spanish explaining the background Interviews about the school (some in spanish, just audio).

Important: to get feedback from the audience.

Important next steps for Masoom: - Please send me any kind of visual/sound materials that you already have (sound

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recordings, field notes, pictures from workshop, pictures from San Roque, pictures/ scans of flyer, more sketches etc). Its important for me to get a sense of the material that might be in the exhibition, or so I can start making a selection of relevant sound and visual material etc. —> Please upload here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B3y7lKbpnHv_a254X1IyVDVNM1U - Please let me know as soon as possible when you will be able to have the works ready/ when you will start working on them. Its good for me to get a sense of time; I can then also make sure you keep your schedule ;) - Please keep me updated on the workshop idea and whether it will happen, with whom and how and where and when ;) - If any other ideas for events/links to Ecuadorian community in Queens come to your mind then let me know

CONCEPT

_________ Maria and Mateo The Communas of Quito as the Collective Inhabitation of Territory This joint thesis focuses on the autonomous indigenous communal within the municipality of Quito and their right to territory: in the Constitution from 2008 they were recognized through the definition of Ecuador as a Plurinational state. Yet, the communas see themselves confronted with a lack of defined borders to their communal lands - represented only as dots on a map which has maked them vulnerable subjects to neoliberal urbanization strategies and capital pressures. As a result, neither the rural nor the urban form a base for indigenous communities to locate their lives.

The two authors use this lack of defined territory as an entry point to support the communas in their struggle for self-governance, autonomy and legal recognition by the Municipality.

Firstly, they make a clear argument for the importance and necessity of access to communal territory: other than the term “land”, territory speaks not only to a physical site but to a social space in which spiritual, traditional, historic and cultural elements can be practiced and nourished for future generations. In this sense, the territory comes into existence by inhabiting it, by actively engaging with it, by continuing the struggle over its rights. In this case, “la urgencia del territorio” originates in its lack of defined borders and its need to become autonomous, communal lands in the hands of indigenous communities - recognized by the Municipality - in a way that future development plans have to be in accordance with the indigenous; an instance that previously had led to displacement, dislocation and exploitation of indigenous lands.

From their place of work, the two authors propose a multi-facetted self-governance tool that consists of a collective mapping of the territorial borders (cartography), a non-traditional census and a tool for economic self-management. This entire project has come into being through an intensive collaboration with various indigenous community, primarily the Pueblo Kitu Kara, and through a collaboration with other researchers and activists who have done previous work towards the cartography of the communal lands. Through their extensive research they have been able to find the “missing link” via the proposed tools - to assist the communas in their struggle for autonomy and resistance to neoliberal struggles.

The joint thesis is a very complex, extensive and very serious undertaking that speaks to radical political interests and deep engagement with matters of social and

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territorial justice from a standpoint of two urban activists and architects.

Critique: The tools they have developed appear to be suiting the people’s needs. They demonstrate an in-depth engagement with the people of the sites and other activists/scholars who have been involved with the people and the given sites. Yet they are very complex tools that a) require a lot of input to be implemented (again, who will actually do all this work —> census), b) that make it difficult to understand as an outsider or someone technologically unskilled as some indigenous might be (the website). So the effective impact of the proposed tools are not quite clear to me.

Intriguing: - Their theoretical conceptualization of territory is very compelling and useful in the context of the exhibition (territory= land+spiritural, traditional, cultural, religious, historic elements).

- The proposed tools are spot on and have a direct political purpose that can improve the livelihoods indigenous communities in a severe manner.

- The visuals (maps and diagrams) are visually compelling and can work well in an exhibition space.

CONCEPT

Tools used / Research Approach: - Mapping, economic tool for self-governance —> their research is deeply rooted in their profession as architects with a history of working on environmental and social issues. From this position they approached the given site and found a way to “plug themselves in” in a very applicable way - with outcomes with realistic chances to being implemented.

Territorial Urgency: - What urgency does the territory place upon (their) research? —> The territory that they have conducted their research in was lacking legal borders/land titles, which made the indiginenous communities that were living there vulnerable to capital-driven urban development practices - displacing them.

Proposed Works: - An installation that presents all three lines of their proposed tool (cartography, census, tool for economic self-management) in an interactive manner. Additional images from their field trips to the communes set the context.

Forms of Display: - A touch screen that allows the viewer to use/explore their web-tool. Very big print outs of a selection of their maps with additional text highlighting the relevance /context of this work. Not sure yet how to display the scope/purpose/dimension of the survey and the economic self-governance tools. This ideally works as an installation rather than a set of flat images on the wall.

- In terms of content the project shows proximity to Tait and Gamar (supporting local knowledge, mapping), Sinead (communal activity, alternative forms of political organization), Zanny (how market pressures / uneven development negatively effect the lives and the wellbeing of indigenous communities).

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______________ Gamar and Tait Red de Mercados: Representation and Meaning Making to Build Solidarity Across Quito’s Public Markets

CONCEPT

This joint thesis seeks a way to ignite a solidarity network between the different market struggles within and around Quito in order to form a counter-movement to the government policies and the capital-driven urban developments that shape Quito’s future. This undertaking consists of three main components: A) a historical inquiry into landownership in Ecuador from the Pre-Inca period until todays (post)-neoliberal period. b) an investigation into the condition of the market, ranging from working conditions to housing conditions, by looking at the potato value chain C) an investigation into tools of how to build solidarity networks (by looking at Paulo Freire’s pedagogy, the social movements of the Landless Farmers in Brazil and in Italy) — and by creating a film as a critical pedagogical tool to aid in creating a solidarity network between the disparate market struggles. This entire process is regarded to be an iterative process of representation; one that remains to be in construction, improvement and adjustment - and when undertaken collectively can contribute to the construction of a solidarity network. This also speaks to the collaborative and engaging nature of this project which has been created in close relationship with the activists and workers of MSR and the rural areas.

Apart from an in-depth theoretical analysis of the historic and contemporary condition of the landownership and labor conditions in and around the market, the thesis also shows a remarkable capacity to visualize these struggles via maps, diagrams and sketches. For instance, the potato value chain diagram is able to communicate a very dense, global construct of trade and ideologies in a pragmatic and easy to understand language. Also, in a quite fascinating manner, the two authors have created a visual language to narrate the incredibly rich history of Ecuadors landownership in few very intriguing icons. The collection of this information and its visualization strike me as something that should be published in a separate document in order to be widely accessible since the scholarship on Latin America is often scarce, outdated or hard to come by. The third main design component of the project is a film with the title: “Los Mercados de Quito” — it focuses on the struggles and social/ political tensions between the two markets, the MSR and the Mercado San Francisco, which has received much more political (and hence financial) attention in order for it to be promoted publicly, granted its central locality, seemingly in exchange for its hygiene and orderly appearance. This makes this market much more attractive for tourism, yet also less affordable for the locals and less authentic in regards to its indigenous cultural heritage.

In my eyes, this project is a very idealistic and at the same time critical undertaking that shows a deep engagement with critical scholars and designers, while at the same time searching for meaningful connections with the local workers, activists, inhabitants and market leaders. It spans historic - contemporary time frames and local - international geographic scales of production, investment, import/export, political organizing and social movements.

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CONCEPT

Critique: The thesis seems fragmentary since it consists of several parts that aren’t really connected and almost appear as completely separate essays/projects. In the aftermath its not always easy to trace back why certain decisions were taken and why these distinct projects came together (other than having to write a thesis). I think it would have been valuable to tie the different parts of their thesis together, to make an explicit link between the research into landownership and the contemporary condition of the market. One could have argued for one film that connects these two parts rather then to produce two disparate media. So for the sake of the exhibition it might make sense not to present all the aspects of the exhibition as ONE project but to split up their work and showcase it in relation to the other works (e.g. Potato value chain next to the indigenous communes project rather then to put it next to the film or images from their workshops). Whereas I find the film they produced an important outcome I am not sure whether the underlying concept (in accordance to Paulo Freire) transcends to the viewer. The visuals are not always aesthetically well produced and the amount of text with blank, black stills isn’t the most compelling form for a viewer. However I do believe it needs to be screened as it speaks to the struggles of a market which is central to many of the projects.

Intriguing: - Field notes / diary style of first part of thesis - history of land ownership as a very important document that brings together disparate historic accounts of landownership in an unprecedented manner. The visual illustration to it makes very dense and potentially “dry” information appealing.

- The potato value chain: whereas I really appreciate the immense effort to bring this information together, across temporal and geographical scales, I do think its a highly complex map that requires a lot of patience from the viewer and Im not sure how it can be displayed in a way that it becomes self-explanatory and alludes to its relevance (and interdependence) of the market within a wider web of global market transactions.

- I really like one still image from the film: an old man with a potato between his two fingers —> print it for the exhibition - I am a fan of their time lapse videos from the market - in case the webcam doesn’t work this would be a great way to get the market experience into the exhibition space.

Tools used / Research Approach: - Mapping, critical urban pedagogy (film) - overall a very iterative, experimental process, engaging and listening with locals —> “learning by doing” Territorial Urgency: - What urgency does the territory place upon (her) research? —> Focused on uneven urban development in all its facets; its social, historical and geopolitical implications.

Proposed Works: - An animation of their land ownership history - Film of Quitos markets on a screen

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- Market timelapses - Print out or animated film of the potato value chain - Dairies / field notes, potentially handwritten (to be discussed) Forms of Display: - Argument to be fleshed out via the form of display is their experimental, explorational, iterative research approach towards the vulnerable territory that is marked by uneven development and neoliberal market pressures. Their point of entry into the site is led by a serious engagement with the local activist organizations and individuals. To find a market metaphor: “Serious play” - their approach was not strictly set from the beginning and they allowed themselves to deviate, playful in a way, but yet were serious about the interactions and outcomes.

To continue this “playful” metaphor, I would be open to distributing these materials across the exhibition space, linking them with similar works to enforce one argument (e.g. pair the film of struggles of the market with Zanny’s work). Their work is in proximity with Mateo and Maria, and Masoom (building networks of solidarity/resistance via local knowledges), Sinead and Zanny (making global and national connections - including talking about tourism branding and local disinvestment in the market)

CONCEPT

_____________ Zanny Grounded Coerciveness of Tourism & Nation Rebranding: Slow Violence Towards Large Traditional Food Markets in Quito, Ecuador This thesis critically engages with the way in which tourism, city branding and urban (re)-development shape Quitos city center in response to capital-driven interests and global market forces. The concept of inter-urban -competition hence becomes crucial in the author’s analysis: a process “where governmental authorities sell their local and nation-wide assets to the global stage for international attraction, which includes tourism and foreign investment” (21). These urban practices prioritize specific sectors that appear as marketable globally and at the same time it renders other parts of the city as sites of exclusion, disinvestment and displacement. A specific site in which to observe the interplay of global macro and micro processes is the contested space of Mercado San Roque; home and place of work to many indigenous, low-income, sex-workers and other socially marginalized groups. This negatively connotated site stands in stark contrast to the adjacent Centro Historico, UNESCO World Heritage site; focus of local and international politics and investment to maintain its colonial heritage and world-class tourist destination status. To achieve this desired spot within the map of tourist destinations the city has to enter the capitalist process of “competitiveness” for the sake of capital accumulation. Thereby, the competitive aspects is not only about the economics but also about a particular vision of the future of a city, in this case Quito — which prioritizes build urban form, rather than the “lived space” (Lefebvre) of the urban realm — even though the campaign claims to follow the principle of Buen Vivir. The existing monetary resources are used to create an “urban spectacle” that seeks to fulfill the tourists need for entertainment and excitement and leaves the necessities of the locals behind.

The author examines critical practices that have tried to address the global pressures onto the urban realm through community organizing and artistic means. The

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author proposes a critical pedagogical tool to communicate Quito’s story of urbanizing landscape as a first step into capacity building. The author envisions that bringing awareness of the macro situation into the micro will help the locals to join their currently disparate struggles and collectively counteract these global forces.

Critique: This thesis does incredible work in framing the global pressures that shape urban space today - in this case, Quito. By focusing on tourism as a key force the author is able to demonstrate the mechanisms of investment into urban space - and how tourists as capital-bearing entities are prioritized in a way that monetary resources are left empty to fulfill the needs of its inhabitants. It shows in an interesting manner how the independent logics and mechanisms of global institutions like the UNESCO, IMF, World Bank and economic principles like neoliberalism form an incredibly strong interplay of forces that are difficult to halter. Her critical pedagogical tool is an attempt to inform the local inhabitants and workers of MSR about the global forces that shape their daily urban space. Yet, I believe this is a very shy and potentially weak tool to interfere in this dense web of global forces. Also, it has not been implemented in the way that it was intended to be. So one might argue that her interventionist approach is lacking adequate tools and energy, time and resources to implement a critical strategy in Quito. For the exhibition I believe that the interrelation of global pressures onto a local site like MSR is valuable. One needs to think about ways to address these issues in a visually compelling manner.

CONCEPT

Intriguing: - The rich analysis of the macro and micro situation is very valuable not only for this thesis but for the work of the collective. Trying to trace the relationship between global market pressures and the way it affects the market on a micro scale is also essential information for the viewer of the exhibition.

- The juxtaposition of the tourist narrative of Ecuador vs. The reality that we have encountered is very intriguing and would be great to be integrated into the exhibition.

Tools used / Research Approach: - Macro/micro analysis, critical pedagogical tool — as a foreigner it almost seemed easier for her to relate to the global perspective onto the market and then narrow down her research. So her way to relate to the research site was by starting from her own geographic, cultural and academic standpoint…and slowly approaching the reality of the peoples of San Roque.

Territorial Urgency: - What urgency does the territory place upon (her) research? —> It seemed necessary to draw the connection between the local conditions of Quito and the global pressures, market scenarios and ideologic disputes that eventually shape the social and built urban form of Quito. This awareness-raising process is believed to build the grounds for organizing and activism to find counter-techniques against those global market forces.

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CONCEPT

Proposed Works / Forms of Display: - I would envision an installation with several aspects: 1. A diagram that shows the connection of the macro and the micro 2. Two video displays, one with a tourism advertisement, one with visuals/documentary from the markets (or just one screen with the tourism video and images of the mercado / protests around it) 3. A printed version of the booklet (extra print outs for viewers to take along) with a short discretion of why it was designed and how it intends to insert itself into this micro/macro scenario as an awareness-raising tool ________________ Sinead Allied with the Antimaravilla: Arts-baed Community Practices and Resistance to Authorized Heritage Discourse in Quito, Ecuador This thesis is a primarily critical, theoretical undertaking that focuses on the socio-political tensions between the Mercado San Roque and the historic center of Quito, which is one of the world’s first UNESCO world heritage site. The author argues that the value that is credited to both of these sites is contigent upon one another: the valorization of the historic center and its narrative of a world heritage site, functions particularly well in relation/contrast to its neighboring MSR, with its public perception of being an “anti-wonder”. The author argues that the value ascription to either side is inherently dictated by the logic of capitalism and urban development.

Whereas, arts-based community practices focus on the social and cultural values that exist in the Mercado San Roque and therefore the various critical spatial practices have formed an alliance in defense of the Mercado as a valid and valued place in Quito’s society.

The author draws on three main strands of theory in order to formulate her argument on urban land value: authorized heritage discourse, cultural, political and aesthetic theory, and socially engaged art practices. With this interdisciplinary approach the author adheres to Rosalyn Deutsche’s terminology of the field of “urban-aesthetic” and “spatial-cultural” discourse — this allows her to critically reflect on the way that Quitos historic center is “aggressively marketed” in order serve as a site of cultural tourism. Here, culture can serve as a resource in global capitalism that strengthens the center’s value and allows the municipality to prioritize conflict-free aesthetic preservation over socio-cultural diversity. In lieu of a strong commercial art market in Quito, artistic practices have turned away from object-based work towards an engagement with the social and public realm. The dominant heritage discourse with its capitalistic logic provides a strong counterpoint against which to lodge (artistic) resistance. The author examines three types of arts-based community practices: a) the institutional approach, in which Quitos museums have created “community mediators” that are responsible to address the socio-political issues of their adjacent barrios from within their institution, b) the collective approach, in which she examines the urban arts festival “Arte Urbano Sur” and the community-arts platform “Gescultura”, and c) the activist approach, that focuses on Red de Saberes’ work in the market as one that resembles the scope of a social movement with a long-term engagement process. None of these approaches follow a traditional understanding of “art making” but blur the lines between social workers, activist, community or-

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ganizer, creative and artist. It is within these often broad self-definitions and often intentionally obscure, “invisible” formats that these practices unfold their political potential — as not to adhere to the strategies of the capital-driven logic of the commercial art market and its ambivalent ascriptions of value to sites such as MSR. By forming a counterpractice/counter-monument to the dominant historic center, the MSR, per se, performs as an antimaravilla - this opens a mental space to consider its counterforce as a positive attribute rather than a negative affirmation of its “otherness”.

CONCEPT

Critique: The thesis is very well-researched and the author has shown the multiple theoretical and practice-based strands that feed into her thematic focus - yet, I sometimes, see a lack of argument. The re-organization of her thesis in combination with sharpened statements could really make this thesis much more political as it is right now. It repeatedly speaks to very political processes and to important, critical art practices yet fails to position herself in a way that its argumentative potential is fulfilled. The author’s language is somehow distant and observing rather then interested in really upsetting the theories and practices that she is speaking of. One has to read her conclusion very carefully in order to sense her critical argument. From a structural standpoint it is often unclear why the author introduces certain information at this particular moment - and keeps introducing new thoughts and authors until the last page. I would have wished for a structurally clearer layout of the “issue”, then the theoretical underpinnings and practice-based responses to such uneven value ascriptions within the urban - and then a clear argument against the status quo of practice - and ways to enhance the ongoing cultural practices as countermonuments (all of this is there, but its much more subtle). For the exhibition space I would like to see an installation that focuses on one of her key final arguments, preferably the notion that the commonly assumed negative perception of MSR as an antimaravilla is what actually grants it power - the power to form a countermonument within the status quo of economic, political and cultural forces that shape the urban realm of Quito.

Intriguing: - The connection between critical urban theory, heritage discourse, arts-based community practices is very powerful and argues for art’s potential to form a critical counterforce within the fragile set of economic and political power relationships within the urban realm.

- The notion that these cultural practices do not follow a traditional understanding of “art making” but blur the lines between social workers, activist, community organizer, creative and artist — and can therefore play with visibility/invisibility as a strategy for critical engagement with the urban.

- By forming a counterpractice/counter-monument to the dominant historic center, the MSR, per se, performs as an antimaravilla - this opens a mental space to consider its counterforce as a positive attribute rather than a negative affirmation of its “otherness”. —> Alternative ascription of VALUE to a market!

Tools used / Research Approach: - Critical analysis, critical writing, art criticism —> she finds her way through global “Western” theories of urban space, cultural theory and art history onto more locally

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produced theories and practices - and makes that combination of theories fruitful for the local setting.

Territorial Urgency: - What urgency does the territory place upon (her) research? —> She senses a lack of value ascribed to MSR - because value in our current society is many financialized on capital markets - the cultural, historic and social value of a site are rendered irrelevant. Her critical analysis finds a way to bring clarity into this dense web of interconnections and argues for a re-evaluation of the market, and highlights cultural practices that are determined to do so.

Proposed Works: - An installation that speaks to the discourse of the antimarvilla vs. The historic center, the maravilla. And then the set of arts-based community practices that address this imbalance. And how they form a counterpractice to the dominant authorized heritage discourse. The antimaravilla forms a necessary counterweight in the existing set of power relations.

CONCEPT

Forms of Display: - maybe somewhat of a network diagram…. It could have a spatial component that shows the actual tension between the MSR and the CH….and then the practices that address this tension….

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EXERCISE: REVISED INTERESTS AND THEMES My thoughts kept on getting more and more confused so I felt the need to take a step back again and to re-write my ideas and main interests on just a few pages.

From there I could advance the curatorial proposal again: Exhibition at the Sheila Johnson Design Center, New York City (January 17th – February 7th, 2017) URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / TERRITORIAL URGENCY (Working Title)

CONCEPT

This term is used by our research partner “Red de Saberes” (web of knowledge), a Quito-based activist group that has been involved with Mercado San Roque for many years: “territorial urgency is the demand that emerges from the social context and asks us to position ourselves from our place of work.”[1] I would like to use this concept as a guiding curatorial frame for this exhibition as it links the necessities of a place, with our responsibilities as researchers and professionals, and demands us to position ourselves politically within this set of relations.

Themes and Interests: My interests lie in the way in which arts/design-led research holds the potential to ignite social transformation within (contested) urban sites — I am interested in how to develop (design-led) strategies of engagement towards a site (territory) that already carries a set of unresolved urgencies within it; ranging from uneven development, threat of displacement, negative public reputation, gender inequality etc. These few examples already imply that my interests lies in critical practices that seek to challenge the status quo of how urban form is built and thought; critical practices that are able to function as a counter-movement within a dense web of global and local forces that shape the urban realm. Practice-based research, in such an instance, finds itself in a meaningful relationship with a territory and its people, indebted to serious and equally sensitive collaboration, exchange and potentially even friendship.

I want to look at the critical design, pedagogic and analytical work of 8 researchers from two Graduate Urban Programs at Parsons who have engaged over more than one year with the fragile social, political, cultural and historical territory of Mercado San Roque (MSR) in Quito, Ecuador. MSR can be regarded as a case of “territorial urgency”: This traditional food market in the heart of Quito — partially run by indigenous communities — feeds 1/3 of the city and yet is under constant threat of removal, political pressure, and social disapproval. Cited arguments are that the Mercado is not only a site of food vending but also of theft, prostitution and chaos. Yet, when you enter this site you encounter a space of daily transactions between whole sellers, small vendors, of carriers, food peelers, of children and elders, that seems so ordinary that it almost renders itself trivial. Yet it is exactly this “normality” of the Mercado that allows it to speak to the condition of Quito as a city and of Ecuador as a Latin American country — torn between neoliberal and alternative economic approaches and political ideologies. To understand the everyday of Mercado San Roque allows us to understand the urgency of this economic, socio-political, cultural terrain of exchange.

Simultaneously, the metaphor of the (local) market as a fragile site of exchange

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CONCEPT

and transaction alludes to its global counterpart of economic markets. This interplay and interdependency between global politics, economic frameworks and local urban policies becomes tangible in the Mercado San Roque; urban territories like the traditional food markets are valued and shaped according to the larger market scenarios that encase it. Socio-cultural traditions cannot be valued financially and appear meaningless in front of urban redevelopment projects — and, the site turns into a vulnerable territory in demand of urgent action.

Having this in mind, how do we respond to this immanent urgency of a site from our field of research, our profession? What urgency does the territory place upon our research? And how do we respond to this demand from afar? What art/design-based/ research-led strategies of engagement, collaboration and intervention are possible and most importantly, desirable?

Curatorial vision & visitor experience: I am interested in an exhibition space that is a space of learning (rather than a space of information) with a non-finite experience that allows for further relationships to be built. I would like to see this exhibition -- and hence its careful introduction of the work to a wider public -- as a continuation of the research process; the viewer thereby becomes part of the project and its open-endedness. Furthermore, I want this exhibition to speak clearly towards its rootedness in social justice, activism and critical thought within the urban realm, not by providing “solution templates” but by taking a stance to insert oneself as a practitioner into a given site in order to strengthen the ongoing processes of resistance. This is important because I believe that such an exhibition can easily drift into a clean “survey of academic projects in a third world country” and I would want this exhibition to be daring and hopefully thought-provoking. I envision an exhibition scenario that lets the viewer “re-live” the questions, ambivalences and struggles of doing research in such a troubled site as the Mercado and to, ideally, take an active stance in the way the exhibition is navigated.

I want to create a visual language that allows the visitor to partake in the experience of the market. By introducing the market as a visual concept I am looking for sensitive ways of doing so that do not exotizise the site as a spectacle. I believe that this might also allow for a critical thinking about the market as a metaphor — the market as an ideological construct that surrounds us all — which, simultaneously, shapes our experiences on the ground. This could be developed further into a participatory principle for the visitor by using market-interactions like “exchange” and “transaction” as forms of engagements. Especially, “transaction” is a term specific to a market that is directed towards an aim, almost like an intervention but carries the word ACTION within it and therefore could be used in a playful manner. The projects themselves can form little stands in which learning, reflection and exchange can occur, while presenting their projects.

As a result from this curatorial work I envision to create an exhibition catalogue with a large curatorial essay and shorter texts, interviews, install views, reflections on the public programming. I would want to produce this for May 2017 and submit this as my thesis for the MA “ Theories of Urban Practice”. I do believe that this would be a valuable theoretical piece on critical spatial practices. ***

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CONCEPT

The projects in the context of the exhibition: [I know you didn’t ask me for this – and by adding this I am exceeding the limit of 1.5 pages – but I thought it would be helpful for me to summarize them in a few sentences and prompt how they might look in the exhibition space – I fear that I always “overload” the concept of the exhibition while “neglecting” the works themselves] The team of students has produced five research-based projects on a variety of issues that become tangible on the site of MSR: 1. (Re)production of urban knowledge in San Roque (Masoom Moitra) Masoom focused on the precarious conditions of the migrant women at MSR who are experiencing gender violence and non-valuation of their reproductive labour.

Furthermore, the lacking right for bilingual education has effected the livelihoods of migrant indigenous communities in and around the market — her proposal “Schools of Hope” seeks to address these two struggles (as cultural and social urgencies immanent in the territory of the market) from her pedagogical and research position. In collaboration with IMI, Immigration International (Tania Bruguera) she has created a series of workshops with the Ecuadorian community in Queens, NYC in which they were exploring issues of food justice — this created space for the children to re-connect with Kichwa culture, acquire research skills and to enter in exchange with other family members about Ecuador.

Her work will be displayed in form on an installation that introduces her “Schools of Hope” proposal via 1) animated drawings that explain the condition of migrant women in the market and 2) field stories (interviews from her time in Quito, visuals from workshop, journal). She wants to integrate an interactive moment into her installation, in which the viewer can give “feedback” (—> notion of “exchange”, critical urban pedagogy as a “tool” to address issues of social justice and to create awareness amongst the community themselves).

2. The Communas of Quito as the Collective Inhabitation of Territory (Maria Morales, Mateo Fernandez) This joint thesis focuses on the autonomous indigenous communal within the municipality of Quito and their right to territory (recognized in the Constitution from 2008).

Yet, the communas see themselves confronted with a lack of defined borders to their communal lands - represented only as dots on a map which has made them vulnerable subjects to neoliberal urbanization strategies and capital pressures. The two authors use this lack of defined territory as an entry point to support the communas in their struggle for autonomy by developing a tool for self-governance and by mapping the indigenous lands so they can be turned into legal land titles.

Their work will be displayed in form of large print outs of their maps and a (touch) screen on which their self-governance tool can be accessed (its a website that shows the different components).

3. Red de Mercados: Representation and Meaning Making to Build Solidarity Across Quito’s Public Markets (Gamar Makarian, Tait Mandler) This joint thesis seeks a way to ignite a solidarity network between the different market struggles within and around Quito in order to form a counter-movement to the government policies and capital-driven urban developments that shape Quito’s future. They have produced A) Film and Visuals: a historical inquiry into landown-

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ership in Ecuador from the Pre-Inca period until todays (post)-neoliberal period. b) Map: an investigation into the condition of the market, ranging from working conditions to housing conditions, by looking at the potato value chain C) Film: a film on Quitos market as a way to create awareness for the disparate but similar struggles and to create links of solidarity.

This entire process is regarded to be an iterative process of representation; the three components will be shown as an installation that make a valuable link between the history of landownership that led to todays uneven urban development, the way this plays out in the market and is inherent in the food chain of the potato — and how these struggles in the markets of Quito would find strength in a solidarity network to counteract the increasing capital-driven market pressures.

CONCEPT

4. Grounded Coerciveness of Tourism & Nation Rebranding: Slow Violence Towards Large Traditional Food Markets in Quito, Ecuador (Alexander Venner) This thesis critically engages with the way in which tourism, city branding and urban (re)-development shape Quitos city center in the form of capital-driven interests and global market forces. These urban practices prioritize specific sectors that appear as marketable globally and at the same time they render other parts of the city as sites of exclusion, disinvestment and displacement. These forces seem to clash at MSR — as a site of disinvestment, threatened to be displaced — and the adjacent Historic Center of Quito, a picturesque colonial city center and UNESCO World Heritage site that receives local and global attention and investments to establish it as a worldclass tourist destination. The existing monetary resources are used to create an “urban spectacle” that seeks to fulfill the tourists need for entertainment and excitement and leaves the necessities of the locals behind. The author enables important insights by bringing together the macro and the micro perspective. She has created a pedagogical tool in form of a small booklet that explains the relationship between the global forces (macro) that trickle down to the MSR (micro).

Ideally, her work will be displayed in an installation that contains a diagram (macro-micro relationship), a juxtaposition of tourism branding material and the reality of the mercado, and a printed booklet with free copies for the visitors.

5. Allied with the Antimaravilla: Arts-baed Community Practices and Resistance to Authorized Heritage Discourse in Quito, Ecuador (Sinead Petrasek) This thesis is a primarily theoretical undertaking (not design-led) that focuses on the socio-political tensions between the Mercado San Roque and the historic center of Quito, which is one of the world’s first UNESCO world heritage site. The author argues that the value that is credited to both of these sites is contingent upon one another: the valorization of the historic center and its narrative of a world heritage site, functions particularly well in relation/contrast to its neighboring MSR, with its public perception of being an “anti-wonder” (antimaravilla). The author argues that the value ascription to either side is inherently dictated by the logic of capitalism and urban development. Whereas, arts-based community practices focus on the social and cultural values that exist in the Mercado San Roque and therefore the various critical spatial practices have formed an alliance in defense of the Mercado as a valid and valued place in Quito’s society. The author has examined these cultural counter-practices in the light of critical urban theories, alternative heritage discourse and theories of socially engaged art.

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Since her work is theoretical and not design-led her visual outcomes are limited. We are thinking about creating a network diagram that draws the ambiguous relationship between MSR and the Historic Center, forms of value ascription and cultural practices that “hijack” this capital-driven value system by establishing other forms of appreciation and awareness-raising. *** Question: What mechanisms could I use to flesh out the projects in the right way/ to become strong arguments that speak to my curatorial vision?

What guiding questions can I develop that can help the viewer navigate the conceptual and physical terrain of the exhibition? And potentially give space for a participatory moment…?

How can I start thinking about a written outcome of this exhibition already? I had already envisoned an exhibition catalogue with a large curatorial essay and shorter texts, interviews, install images, reflections on the public programming etc… I would want to produce this for May 2017. Do you think this would be feasible? What would I have to consider already?....

CONCEPT

[1] “La urgencia del territorio es la demanda que emerge del contexto social y nos pide posicionarnos desde nuestro lugar de trabajo.” page 79 in: Contradecirse una Misma: Museos y Mediación Educative Crítica, Anahi Macaroff and Alejandro Cevallos, Eds. (Quito: Fundación Museos de la Ciudad, 2015).

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REVISED CURATORIAL PROPOSAL First layer: Overarching framework As artists, scholars, designers, educators, and activists — how do we insert ourselves into a troubled site that is foreign to us, and begin to envision projects that could create fertile grounds for social justice? How do we collaborate across disciplines, countries, and language barriers to create a more just cityscape?

There are no “template” solutions to such undertakings, no universal guidebooks.

Yet, this exhibition believes that making research projects available to a wider public can foster dialogue and exchange within a diverse community of practitioners who are dedicated to addressing issues of social justice through their work. This exhibition functions as a space of learning and critical discourse that explores possible forms of knowledge production, collaboration, engagement, representation, and tools within the urban realm.

CONCEPT

We – an interdisciplinary research collective consisting of 8 students from two Urban Graduate Programs at Parsons – departed on a journey to Ecuador in 2015 to critically engage with Mercado San Roque, Quito’s largest traditional food market that feeds 1/3 of the city. The Mercado is located in the heart of the city and is a rich space of culture and exchange, but is often portrayed a site of theft, chaos and prostitution. Simultaneously, political and economic pressures on the market are increasing, putting it under the constant threat of displacement or total closure.

Local associations in the market and activist groups have entered a movement of resistance, emphasizing the market’s cultural value, envisioning strategies against the global market forces that create the the precarious conditions for the traditional food m arket on the ground.

For us, Mercado San Roque was an entry point into Quito’s urban tensions, mechanisms and power relations. We departed on a prismatic exploration of issues in and around the market; spanning from uneven development, to indigenous rights, alternative heritage discourse, urban pedagogy, food justice and tourism branding.

We situated ourselves critically towards the status quo of how the urban form is thought and built, envisioning site-specific design propositions that could function as a counter-practice against the global market forces that create the conditions for an unjust and segregated city.

This exhibition is a journey into the collaborative knowledge production that was created over the course of 1.5 years of intense research, several field trips, and ongoing collaboration with various groups and individuals in Ecuador. The audience will be introduced to our project propositions that are entangled between the local tensions in and around the market of San Roque, and the global market forces that create the very vulnerabilities on the ground that we are seeking to address. We envision this exhibition to be a continuation of our open-ended research process in which we enter a dialogue with our audience about the ways in which they are addressing pressing social issues through their practice [—> participatory moment].

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Second layer: The projects themselves / how it is done

CONCEPT

Entering the hallway of SJDC the audience will walk directly towards the front wall on which a participatory piece is screened [details of this project need to be refined].

It will show questions typed in real time by the audience, dealing with the ways in which we, as researchers, artists, educators, can address pressing social issues through our work. The interests of the passerby might be sparked by this statement and will turn to hallway wall on which the exhibition text is shown. Next to the wall text there is a big diagrammatic piece (ideally a collaborative work of the group - an extension of the “Investment/Disinvestment piece by Zanny and Sinead) that introduces Ecuador, Quito and Mercado San Roque as a site, entangled within global politics, market pressures and ideological frameworks. An alternative form of display to a large diagram would be to have a series of smaller frames displayed along the wall in the hallway, the current “investment/disinvestment” piece could be read like a “comic”, page by page.

The tension between the local market and the global market forces will be introduced here, also setting the stage for the UN Habitat III conference and how that framed our project. One could consider having one or two key questions printed on the top end of the diagram that could create a direct link between the diagram and the viewer; e.g. “how do we insert ourselves into a troubled site that is foreign to us, and begin to envision projects that could create fertile grounds for social justice?

How do we collaborate across disciplines, countries, and language barriers to create a more just cityscape?”

With these questions in mind (as a “teaser”), the brief introduction to the global framework, the viewer will enter the gallery space.

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CONCEPT

Once the audience enters the gallery space they will immediately find themselves standing on a simple outline of Quito with some key points of interests; Mercado San Roque, Centro Historico, the bilingual school, etc. In the background, on the large window towards 5th Ave, the viewers will see a screening of a time-lapse video of the market (on a buttermilk screen). Depending on the time of the day, and the amount of daylight, the image of the market and the view onto 5th Ave will blend into one another. A subtle soundscape of a market will be present in the gallery space.

At each of the points of interests on the map on the floor there will be headphones available that tell a short story about the place and how it relates to the other points on the map (e.g. For Mercado San Roque: in the heart of Quito, 35 years of existence, largest market, feeds 1/3 of city, diverse community, many indigenous, by the city portrayed as a site of theft, prostitution, chaos — “anti-maravilla”, the anti-wonder of the city — whereas the actual “wonder” is the Centro Historico, pressures to dislocate the market to the periphery of Quito, resistance movement within the market (Frente de Defensa) and (Red de Saberes), etc).

Through the audio pieces the visitor will hear a short narrative about the site, its struggles and tensions in relation to other nearby sites. By listening to 3-4 of those short narratives the viewer will get a clearer sense of the troubled site that he himself stands on. The audience will learn to navigate the terrain, the same way we as researchers had learned to fill the dots on the maps with information and to create sets of relationships between the different sites, groups of people, histories — in order to be able to identify the set of tensions that seemed most pressing to us. The large map on the floor “grounds” the viewer in Quito, it creates a physical relation and immediacy between the viewer and our site of investigation. This layer is what I call the “Local Market Scale”.

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CONCEPT

[Installation note: The audio can either be listened to through headphones that are hanging from the ceiling over each of the marks on the map. Alternatively the points on the map could have one of the white pedestals with two headphones applied on the sides, and the name of the location printed onto its sides (e.g. Mercado San Roque).]

One way of introducing the Quito-based activist collective, Red de Saberes, as our core collaborators in this project could be by letting Red de Saberes develop the audio piece for the exhibition. This way, the viewer would be introduced to city through the same lense and framework as we did once we first came to Ecuador. We could consider having various members of Red de Saberes speak to different points of interest. E.g. Luis Herrera to Mercado San Roque, Ana Rodriguez to Centro Historico, etc. Bringing in “voices from Quito” would add to the idea of making the center of the gallery the “local scale” from which our projects expand.

The wall space will be the main site at which the work of the group will be presented.

Each project will have 3-5 elements (video, maps, diagrams) that highlight the key arguments of their work, illustrating the design-led propositions that were created in order to address the tensions and issues portrayed in the narrated map in the center of the room. Alternatively, we could let go off the presentation of the works project by project but create a network of knowledge that tells a larger story of our work as a collective. The works could be “clustered” by common themes, research strategies, or location.

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On top of the works there will be key terms that reference the project and at the same time have a (economic) market affinity: e.g. For Sinead this could be “VALUE” and/or “CULTURAL CAPITAL”, for Tait and Gamar it could be “UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT” and/or “LAND OWNERSHIP”, for Maria and Mateo it could be “LAND TERRITORY - PRIVATE PROPERTY”, for Zanny “WORLD CLASS TOURISM” and/ or “INTER URBAN COMPETITION”, for Masoom “EXCHANGE” etc. These terms can also be used as a reference point for the audience; they can then choose which keywords they are interested in and follow their personal agenda.

I call this level the “Global Market Scale”. By adding these terms a link is created between the very local condition of the market and the global concepts at play — in between are our works that deal with this tension and try to shift the power relations towards the marginalized, making use of our positions, resources and knowledge as researchers.

CONCEPT

Interactive component I envision an interactive component in the exhibition space that links the hallway space with the gallery space, which at the same time creates a dialogue about how this specific project connects to a wider network of (urban) practices with a social justice agenda. One potential way of doing this is laid out here, but I believe this needs more thought [feedback welcome!]: One of the marks on the ground in the gallery space could be an icon of a visitor. It could have a tablet/screen/computer on which the viewer can reflect on his relation to this space of tensions and question in which ways his//her practice responds to an urgency as well. The answer or question that the viewer might pose can then appear in real time on the frontal wall space in the hallway. It creates a direct connection between the relevance of the work of the group and the relevance of the work of the viewer. This installation might spark interest in the passerby and “lures” him/her into the gallery space to explore the exhibition, and constitutes a continuation of the discourse on how such collaborative research projects with a social justice agenda can be carried out.

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ANOTHER ITERATION OF THE CURATORIAL PROPOSAL First layer: Overarching framework As artists, scholars, designers, educators, and activists — how do we insert ourselves into a troubled site that is foreign to us, and begin to envision projects that could create fertile grounds for social justice? How do we collaborate across disciplines, countries, and language barriers to create a more just cityscape?

There are no “template” solutions to such undertakings, no universal guidebooks.

Yet, this exhibition believes that making research projects available to a wider public can foster dialogue and exchange within a diverse community of practitioners who are dedicated to addressing issues of social justice through their work. This exhibition functions as a space of learning and critical discourse that explores possible forms of knowledge production, collaboration, engagement, representation, and tools within the urban realm.

CONCEPT

We – an interdisciplinary research collective consisting of 8 students from two Urban Graduate Programs at Parsons – departed on a journey to Ecuador in 2015 to critically engage with Mercado San Roque, Quito’s largest traditional food market that feeds 1/3 of the city. The Mercado is located in the heart of the city and is a rich space of culture and exchange, but is often portrayed a site of theft, chaos and prostitution. Simultaneously, political and economic pressures on the market are increasing, putting it under the constant threat of displacement or total closure.

Local associations in the market and activist groups have entered a movement of resistance, emphasizing the market’s cultural value, envisioning strategies against the global market forces that create the the precarious conditions for the traditional food market on the ground.

For us, Mercado San Roque was an entry point into Quito’s urban tensions, mechanisms and power relations. We departed on a prismatic exploration of issues in and around the market; spanning from uneven development, to indigenous rights, alternative heritage discourse, urban pedagogy, food justice and tourism branding.

We situated ourselves critically towards the status quo of how the urban form is thought and built, envisioning site-specific design propositions that could function as a counter-practice against the global market forces that create the conditions for an unjust and segregated city.

This exhibition is a journey into the collaborative knowledge production that was created over the course of 1.5 years of intense research, several field trips, and ongoing collaboration with various groups and individuals in Ecuador. The audience will be introduced to our project propositions that are entangled between the local tensions in and around the market of San Roque, and the global market forces that create the very vulnerabilities on the ground that we are seeking to address. We envision this exhibition to be a continuation of our open-ended research process in which we enter a dialogue with our audience about the ways in which they are addressing pressing social issues through their practice [—> participatory moment].

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Second layer: The projects themselves / how it is done

CONCEPT

Entering the hallway of SJDC the audience will walk directly towards the front wall on which the viewer will see two displays: one with picturesque images of Ecuador from tourism campaign and one with the local reality of the people in the market.

This juxtaposition of images, of a portrayed and actual reality are central when thinking about the global market forces and the way they manifest in the local market scenario -- the tensions between the global appeal of the site (framed by the “investment” side) and the local reality (framed by disinvestment). The interests of the passerby might be sparked by this statement and will turn to hallway wall on which the exhibition text is shown. Next to the wall text there is a big diagrammatic piece (ideally a collaborative work of the group - an extension of the “Investment/Disinvestment piece by Zanny and Sinead) that introduces Ecuador, Quito and Mercado San Roque as a site, entangled within global politics, market pressures and ideological frameworks. An alternative form of display to a large diagram would be to have a series of smaller frames displayed along the wall in the hallway, the current “investment/disinvestment” piece could be read like a “comic”, page by page.

The tension between the local market and the global market forces will be introduced here, also setting the stage for the UN Habitat III conference and how that framed our project. One could consider having one or two key questions printed on the top end of the diagram that could create a direct link between the diagram and the viewer; e.g. “how do we insert ourselves into a troubled site that is foreign to us, and begin to envision projects that could create fertile grounds for social justice?

How do we collaborate across disciplines, countries, and language barriers to create a more just cityscape?”

We can consider opening up this diagrammatic introduction to the viewer, so that the audience can insert questions, make connections, make statements. This has to be further elaborated.

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CONCEPT

With these questions in mind (as a “teaser”), the brief introduction to the global framework, the viewer will enter the gallery space.

Once the audience enters the gallery space they will immediately find themselves standing on a simple outline of Quito with some key points of interests: 1. Mercado San Roque, 2. Centro Historico, 3. the bilingual school, 4. Mercado San Francisco, 5. Pueblo Kitu Kara, etc. In the background, on the back wall, the viewers will see a screening of a time-lapse video of the market. A subtle soundscape of a market will be present in the gallery space.

At each of the points of interests on the map on the floor there will be headphones available that tell a short story about the place and how it relates to the other points on the map (e.g. For Mercado San Roque: in the heart of Quito, 35 years of existence, largest market, feeds 1/3 of city, diverse community, many indigenous, by the city portrayed as a site of theft, prostitution, chaos — “anti-maravilla”, the anti-wonder of the city — whereas the actual “wonder” is the Centro Historico, pressures to dislocate the market to the periphery of Quito, resistance movement within the market (Frente de Defensa) and (Red de Saberes), etc).

Through the audio pieces the visitor will hear a short narrative about the site, its struggles and tensions in relation to other nearby sites. By listening to 3-4 of those short narratives the viewer will get a clearer sense of the troubled site that he himself stands on. The audience will learn to navigate the terrain, the same way we as researchers had learned to fill the dots on the maps with information and to create sets of relationships between the different sites, groups of people, histories — in order to be able to identify the set of tensions that seemed most pressing to us. The large map on the floor “grounds” the viewer in Quito, it creates a physical relation

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and immediacy between the viewer and our site of investigation. This layer is what I call the “Local Market Scale”.

One way of introducing the Quito-based activist collective, Red de Saberes, as our core collaborators in this project could be by letting Red de Saberes develop the audio piece for the exhibition. This way, the viewer would be introduced to city through the same lense and framework as we did once we first came to Ecuador. We could consider having various members of Red de Saberes speak to different points of interest, each of the audio pieces could be sparked by a key question that we phrase, E.g. Luis Herrera to Mercado San Roque, Ana Rodriguez to Centro Historico, etc.

Bringing in “voices from Quito” would add to the idea of making the center of the gallery the “local scale” from which our projects expand.

CONCEPT

The wall space will be the main site at which the work of the group will be presented.

Each project will have 3-5 elements (video, maps, diagrams) that highlight the key arguments of their work, illustrating the design-led propositions that were created in order to address the tensions and issues portrayed in the narrated map in the center of the room. Alternatively, we could let go off the presentation of the works project by project but create a network of knowledge that tells a larger story of our work as a collective. The works could be “clustered” by common themes, research strategies, or location.

On top of the works there will be key terms that reference the project and at the same time have a (economic) market affinity: e.g. For Sinead this could be “VALUE” and/or “CULTURAL CAPITAL”, for Tait and Gamar it could be “UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT” and/or “LAND OWNERSHIP”, for Maria and Mateo it could be “LAND TERRITORY - PRIVATE PROPERTY”, for Zanny “WORLD CLASS TOURISM” and/ or “INTER URBAN COMPETITION”, for Masoom “EXCHANGE” etc. These terms can also be used as a reference point for the audience; they can then choose which keywords they are interested in and follow their personal agenda.

I call this level the “Global Market Scale”. By adding these terms a link is created between the very local condition of the market and the global concepts at play — in between are our works that deal with this tension and try to shift the power relations towards the marginalized, making use of our positions, resources and knowledge as researchers.

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REVISED CURATORIAL PROPOSAL (Dec 7th)

_____ Title Ideas: URGENCIA TERRITORIAL Critical Research & Design in Response to Spatial Urgencies in Quito, Ecuador or FREE (the) MARKET: Critical design for more just food markets in Quito under global market pressure or UNDER PRESSURE: Critical Research & Design in Response to Spatial Urgencies in Quito, Ecuador Install: 17th - 19th of January 2017 Opening Event: Tuesday, 24th of January Deinstall: 5th - 7th of February 2017 First layer: Overarching framework “Urgencia Territorial” describes a terrain in a state of emergency that places a demand towards us, as researchers and practitioners, to address the given urgencies of a site from our profession. As artists, scholars, designers, educators, and activists — how do we insert ourselves into a troubled site that is foreign to us, and begin to envision projects that could create fertile grounds for social justice? How do we collaborate across disciplines, countries, and language barriers to create a more just cityscape?

CONCEPT

There are no “template” solutions to such undertakings, no universal guidebooks.

Yet, this exhibition believes that making research projects available to a wider public can foster dialogue and exchange within a diverse community of practitioners who are dedicated to addressing issues of social justice through their work. This exhibition functions as a space of learning and critical discourse that explores possible forms of knowledge production, collaboration, engagement, representation, and tools within the urban realm.

We – an interdisciplinary research collective consisting of 8 students from two Urban Graduate Programs at Parsons – departed on a journey to Ecuador in 2015 to critically engage with Mercado San Roque, Quito’s largest traditional food market that feeds 1/3 of the city. The Mercado is located in the heart of the city and is a rich space of culture and exchange, but is often portrayed a site of theft, chaos and prostitution. Simultaneously, political and economic pressures on the market are increasing, putting it under the constant threat of displacement or total closure.

Local associations in the market and activist groups have entered a movement of resistance, emphasizing the market’s cultural value, envisioning strategies against the global market forces that create the the precarious conditions for the traditional food market on the ground.

For us, Mercado San Roque was an entry point into Quito’s urban tensions, mechanisms and power relations. We departed on a prismatic exploration of issues in and around the market; spanning from uneven development, to indigenous rights, alternative heritage discourse, urban pedagogy, food justice and tourism branding.

We situated ourselves critically towards the status quo of how the urban form is thought and built, envisioning site-specific design propositions that could function as

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a counter-practice against the global market forces that create the conditions for an unjust and segregated city.

This exhibition is a journey into the collaborative knowledge production that was created over the course of 1.5 years of intense research, several field trips, and ongoing collaboration with various groups and individuals in Ecuador. The audience will be introduced to our project propositions that are entangled between the local tensions in and around the market of San Roque, and the global market forces that create the very vulnerabilities on the ground that we are seeking to address. We envision this exhibition to be a continuation of our open-ended research process in which we enter a dialogue with our audience about the ways in which they are addressing pressing social issues through their practice.

Second layer: The projects themselves

CONCEPT

Entering the SJDC the audience will be standing along the hallway where the introductory wall text welcomes the audience to the exhibition. Next to it will be a long diagram that maps the road from “Global Pressures to Local Action” tracing neoliberal developments from a global scale, down to the scale of Latin America and the local scale that introduces Ecuador, Quito and Mercado San Roque as a site, entangled within global politics, market pressures and ideological frameworks. The question of “how do we insert ourselves into a troubled site that is foreign to us, and begin to envision projects that could create fertile grounds for social justice?” is written above the diagram -- connecting to key questions of a research community like TNS.

Currently the idea of integrating an interactive component is still something that needs to be further developed. Tentative ideas include: small cards that people can pin onto the large diagram, leaving a note on where they believe they insert themselves in the global set of tensions in order to advocate for social justice [e.g. “Global scale: I work at the UN because I believe that it is through this international organizations that I can reach the most people and influence states and other organizations”] On the front wall in the hallway there will be an installation that focuses on the pro-

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cess of how we, as a research collective, tried to address issues of social justice through our work - how we entered the site, started to build a social web of relations in order to create a network of knowledge, the results of which we are presenting in this exhibition. In the center there will be a screen with a short animation of how this research was done, the relations established. On the wall around the screen will be an arrangement books that helped in the construction of knowledge in our process.

With this thematic introduction and the introduction into the research process, the audience will enter the gallery space in order to learn more about the specifics of the project - what questions were raised, tools were developed, what issues addressed.

CONCEPT

Once the audience enters the gallery space they will immediately find themselves standing on a simple outline of Quito with some key points of interests: 1. Mercado San Roque, 2. Centro Historico, 3. the bilingual school, 4. Mercado San Francisco, 5. Pueblo Kitu Kara, 6. The Municipality/Government. A subtle soundscape of a market will be present in the gallery space and a large screen, mounted to the window shows scenes of a busy market of San Roque.

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At each of the points of interests on the map on the floor there will be headphones available that tell a short story about the place and how it relates to the other points on the map (e.g. For Mercado San Roque: in the heart of Quito, 35 years of existence, largest market, feeds 1/3 of city, diverse community, many indigenous, by the city portrayed as a site of theft, prostitution, chaos — “anti-maravilla”, the anti-wonder of the city — whereas the actual “wonder” is the Centro Historico, pressures to dislocate the market to the periphery of Quito, resistance movement within the market (Frente de Defensa) and (Red de Saberes), etc).

Through the audio pieces the visitor will hear a short narrative about the site, its struggles and tensions in relation to other nearby sites. By listening to 3-4 of those short narratives the viewer will get a clearer sense of the troubled site that he himself stands on. The audience will learn to navigate the terrain, the same way we as researchers had learned to fill the dots on the maps with information and to create sets of relationships between the different sites, groups of people, histories — in order to be able to identify the set of tensions that seemed most pressing to us. The large map on the floor “grounds” the viewer in Quito, it creates a physical relation and immediacy between the viewer and our site of investigation. This layer is what I call the “Local Market Scale”.

CONCEPT

One way of introducing the Quito-based activist collective, Red de Saberes, as our core collaborators in this project could be by letting Red de Saberes develop the audio piece for the exhibition. This way, the viewer would be introduced to city through the same lense and framework as we did once we first came to Ecuador. We could consider having various members of Red de Saberes speak to different points of interest, each of the audio pieces could be sparked by a key question that we phrase, E.g. Luis Herrera to Mercado San Roque, Ana Rodriguez to Centro Historico, etc.

Bringing in “voices from Quito” would add to the idea of making the center of the gallery the “local scale” from which our projects expand.

The wall space will be the main site at which the work of the group will be presented.

On top of each of the projects one will read a key question that speaks to the urgencies addressed in the work. Below it there is a simple arrangement of 3-5 elements (video, maps, diagrams) that highlight the key arguments of their work, illustrating the design-led propositions that were created in order to address the tensions and issues portrayed in the narrated map in the center of the room.

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CONCEPT

On top of the works there will be key terms that reference the project and at the same time have a (economic) market affinity: e.g. For Sinead this could be “VALUE” and/or “CULTURAL CAPITAL”, for Tait and Gamar it could be “UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT” and/or “LAND OWNERSHIP”, for Maria and Mateo it could be “LAND TERRITORY - PRIVATE PROPERTY”, for Zanny “WORLD CLASS TOURISM” and/ or “INTER URBAN COMPETITION”, for Masoom “EXCHANGE” etc. These terms can also be used as a reference point for the audience; they can then choose which keywords they are interested in and follow their personal agenda.

I call this level the “Global Market Scale”. By adding these terms a link is created between the very local condition of the market and the global concepts at play — in between are our works that deal with this tension and try to shift the power relations towards the marginalized, making use of our positions, resources and knowledge as researchers.

Towards the window, there will be two tables out of stacked pallets on which the audience can look at materials like newspaper articles, images, and cultural practices around the market. On the left corner there will be an additional small shelf out of wooden boxes that hosts a small library on artistic practices for social change.

Smaller arrangements of wooden boxes around the gallery space will form pedestals on which additional material can be placed, like zines, booklets etc. Making use of pallets and wooden boxes refers to the material reality of the Mercado San Roque and brings a notion of temporality and “pragmatism” into the gallery space.

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[Here are some images of how boxes and pallets can be turned into “furniture” – yet our version would obviously be very simple and not hip and decorated]

CONCEPT

Opening Event with Panel Discussion: Research and Design for Social Change? A Conversation with Practitioners Ideally in the Kellen Auditorium How do we make our academic work (whether research or design-led) meaningful for others, particularly for the community that we engage with? We will discuss this question in the case of our work on Mercado San Roque.

We will screen the film “The Markets of Quito” (produced by Gamar Makarian and Tait Mandler, both alumni ’15) and use their piece as an initiator for a wider discussion around the (academic) tools and strategies to ignite social change for a community. On stage will be our research collaborators David Harvey, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology & Geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), Ana Rodriguez and Luis Herrera, Quito-based activist members of Red de Saberes. An open conversation between the research team and the audience will be a key element of the event.

Tentative Schedule: 5.00 pm - Snack and Drinks, viewing of the exhibition 6.00 pm - Opening words by Miguel Robles-Duran and Sascia Bailer 6.30 pm - Screening of The Markets of Quito 6.45 pm - Conversation with our research collaborators and the audience 8.00 pm - more snacks and food, exhibition on view ***

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COLLECTIVE CONSTRUCTION OF A RESEARCH DIAGRAM Email to the team in order to collectively build a very large intro diagram that shows our collaborative research practice and the issues that we seek to address on various scales: Research Diagram “Network of Knowledge” The idea of this diagram is to show the social relationships that were established during the process of our work ( → our own creation of a “Network of Knowledge”).

Additionally I would like to include other elements (non-human) like theories, books, articles that were essential in forming an understanding for this site. The scales will increase from local to global and hopefully show the multiple connections - and global span - of our work → as a global recognition of the local struggles. As you know Im not a design guru so the visual representation of this is currently still very vague.

Input always welcome :).

Below you can see the first drafts of an overall layout (needs to be filled with content obviously) - the first part of the diagram will have the global market pressures that trickle down onto MSR (Sinead, Zanny and Sascia are working on this) - and the second part is our research diagram - constructing a global network of solidarity/ alternative knowledge. This will be on the large hallway wall - a general intro into our work.

CONCEPT

Deadline: Jan 3rd for the entire diagram - as in ready to print!

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COMMUNITY SCALE | MSR KEY ACTORS THAT WE CONNECTED WITH: local activists to defend the market before the increasing economic and political pressures

CONCEPT

Red de Saberes Frente de Defensa (Gallo & Blanca & Martita) Centro Experimental de Educación Intercultural Bilingüe de Quito - CEDEIB-Q (Manuel Elichachi) (MM) Jaime and Raul Chugchilan (Presidente de la microempresa Asociativa Atahualpa) (MM) Jose Antonio Guapi (Founder of first union of cargadores in MSR and head of kindergarten) (MM) Alejandro Cevallos, Valeria Galarza and Andres Rueza (CAC) Miriam de Calle Loja Fernando y Pilar de las Papas (T&G) Al Zur-ich Cafe Roscón [please add the social group/actors you connected with - please be as specific as possible - ideally adding the person you worked with and the organization] Marco León (Current President of the Cabildo in Comuna Tola Chica) (M&M) Fernando Cabascango (President of Pueblo Kitu Kara) (M&M) Wilmer Guachamín (Former President of Comuna Cocotog) (M&M) Juan Mérida (Communard at Cocotog) (M&M) KEY TEXTS/AUTHORS/THEORIES: Eduardo Kingman Garcés. San Roque: indígenas urbanos, seguridad y patrimonio.

Ecuador: FLACSO, 2012.

Hopfgartner, Kathrin. “Movimiento Regional Por La Tierra.” ESTUDIO DE CASO: La lucha por el territorio en la Comunidad Ancestral La Toglla. Edited by Movimiento Regional Por La Tierra. 2014 Santillán Sarmiento, Verónica Natalie. Presión Urbana sobre Áreas Rurales. Transformación Territorial en la Parroquia de Tumbaco 2001-2010. Caso de Estudio de las Comunas Leopoldo N. Chávez y Tola Chica. Tesis para Obtener el T. de Maestría en CCSS con Mención en Desarrollo Local y Territorial. Quito: FLACSO - Sede Ecuador, 2014 [please add key texts that formed your understanding of this scale] STATEMENT: We were introduced to the local activist group Red de Saberes who is dedicated to strengthening the ongoing movement of resistance within the neighborhood of San Roque. Through them we learned about the tensions in the city, the key actors who are working for an alternative vision of San Roque. [feel free to add ideas for this statement]

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In order to create the introductory diagram we had to create a narrative that connected the history of neoliberalism, global events, regional developments in Latin America to our site in Mercado San Roque:

,Purpose of V2: ● Gather quotes and/or key events that are relevant for each scale ● Edit and scrape down to most relevant/grounding for our frae ● Look for imagery ● Write little sentences for each image---depending how it shapes NOTE: I THINK WE SHOULD HAVE A “GENERAL” DEFINITION OF NEOLIBERALISM SOMEWHERE IN THE INTRODUCTION. QUOTES ARE GREAT, BUT WE NEED SOMETHING THAT STATES WHAT OUR DEFINITION OF NEOLIBERALISM BEFORE WE ENTER THE NARRATIVE GENERAL QUOTES: “Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade.” ― David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism

CONCEPT

“Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations.

It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that “the market” delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.”

George Monbiot, Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems, in the Guardian, Friday 15 April 2016 “Freedom from trade unions and collective bargaining means the freedom to suppress wages. Freedom from regulation means the freedom to poison rivers, endanger workers, charge iniquitous rates of interest and design exotic financial instruments. Freedom from tax means freedom from the distribution of wealth that lifts people out of poverty.”

George Monbiot, Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems, in the Guardian, Friday 15 April 2016 “The words used by neoliberalism often conceal more than they elucidate. “The market” sounds like a natural system that might bear upon us equally, like gravity or atmospheric pressure. But it is fraught with power relations. What “the market wants” tends to mean what corporations and their bosses want.”

George Monbiot, Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems, in the Guardian, Friday 15 April 2016

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“The process of neoliberalization has, however, entailed much ‘creative destruction’,” ― David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism “Neoliberal democracy. Instead of citizens, it produces consumers. Instead of communities, it produces shopping malls (...). In sum, neoliberalism is the immediate and foremost enemy of genuine participatory democracy, not just in the United States but across the planet, and will be for the foreseeable future” -NOAM CHOMSKY Latin Americans have gotten tired of the Washington consensus - a neoliberalism that has aggravated misery and poverty. -HUGO CHAVEZ GLOBAL SCALE In the 1970’s neoliberal ideas became more and more established as an alternative to previous economic practices, promoting free trade, privatization, deregulation, outsourcing of public services. International agencies like the United Nations, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund, became key players in the implementation of neoliberal policies on a global scale, often without democratic consent.

CONCEPT

GLOBAL CITIES Neoliberal policies put diverse and inclusive urban spaces at risk by transferring capital for public services and needs into private hands. Cities have turned into hubs for financial transactions and foreign investment that shape the urban realm often without the participation of its inhabitants.

CONTINENT SCALE | NEOLIBERALISM AND LATIN AMERICA From the 80’s onwards Latin America became a laboratory for neoliberal experiments -- free market policies were introduced across the continent, except for Cuba. Chile became a global example for the violent implementation of free trade policies: During the military dictatorship of Pinochet, leading American economists introduced the “neoliberal model” to the country, increasing its economic divide.

The “neoliberal model” also failed to deliver its promises within the continent’s largest economies: Mexico, Brazil and Argentina that soon after were hit by economic crisis’.

QUOTES: “[...] Precisely by having been the laboratory for neoliberal experiments, Latin America is now having to deal with their consequences.” Emir Sader1 “It would have been impossible to implement the wholesale sell-offs of national 1 https://newleftreview.org/II/52/emir-sader-the-weakest-link-neoliberalism-in-latin-america URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / SASCIA BAILER / PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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industrial resources that unfolded most drastically in Chile, Uruguay and Argentina without first crushing the people’s ability to defend their interests.” Emir Sader “Where neoliberal policies cannot be imposed domestically, they are imposed internationally, through trade treaties incorporating “investor-state dispute settlement”: offshore tribunals in which corporations can press for the removal of social and environmental protections.”

George Monbiot, Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems, in the Guardian, Friday 15 April 2016 NATIONAL SCALE | NEOLIBERALISM AND ECUADOR At the turn of the century many countries elected left-wing governments that were in opposition to the neoliberal model, looking for new social and sustainable forms of development. In 2008 Ecuador joined the so called “Pink Tide” movement by electing Rafael Correa as a president. He would recognize the country as a Plurinational State with a “post-neoliberal” economic agenda named “‘Buen Vivir” (‘Good Living’). This included the protection of Pachamama (Kichwa for Mother Earth) and the Right to the City.

CONCEPT

CITY SCALE | QUITO & Historic Center Quito, Ecuador’s capital, is a node for direct foreign investment which is primarily focused on the cities’ “attraction zones”, like commercial, business and tourist sectors. The UNESCO-heritage city center is one of those lucrative places. Areas outside of “attraction zones” suffer from this profit-oriented strategy as it leads to disinvestment, gentrification and displacement in those places. “space, severed from its social production, is thus fetishized as a physical entity... represented as an independent object, it appears to exercise control over the very people who produce and use it.”

- Rosalyn Deutsche, Evictions COMMUNITY SCALE | SAN ROQUE NEIGHBORHOOD The barrio of San Roque is in stark contrast to its neighboring Historic City Center with its picturesque colonial appeal: San Roque is a contested neighborhood that hosts the red light district of the city with its drugs and criminal activities, a jail that only got shut down recently and a large, “chaotic” food market. The recent plans to “sanitize” the neighborhood includes the transformation of the former prison into a 5 star luxury hotel referencing a the Liberty Hotel in Boston, putting immense pressure onto the existing cultural and social structures of the neighborhood.

LOCAL / MERCADO SAN ROQUE Mercado San Roque, a large traditional food market is located in the neighborhood of San Roque. Even though Mercado San Roque was founded 35 years ago and

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feeds ⅓ of the city’s population, it is confronted with a strong negative public perceptions as an unsafe, chaotic city space. The recent urban renewal plans for the area are putting the market at risk of displacement. A resistance movement within the market has been formed to protect the cultural, economic and social values from the increasing economic and political pressures from the outside.

QUOTES: “Que nos atiendan, que nos den infraestructura apta para garantizar la alimentación de una buena parte de la ciudad, condiciones de salubridad y de procesamiento de desechos, espacios de circulación y parqueo, mejores condiciones de trabajo y cobertura social, más seguridad en el sector.

San Roque es un lugar de prácticas interculturales propias de esta ciudad.”

“What we expect is appropriate infrastructure to guarantee food security for a great part of the city, sanitation and waste processing, space for loading and parking, better working conditions and social protection, and more security.San Roque is a place of the city’s own intercultural practices.”

Source: Frente de Defensa y Modernización del Mercado San Roque frentemerdosanroque.wordpress.com

CONCEPT

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CONCEPT

Original site of Mercado San Roque Source: Historical Archives of the Ministerio de la Cultura, Quito

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PRODUCTION PHASE After several iterations of curatorial proposals, many long conversations with the gallery team, my advisors, my research team, and friends, we had finally reached a stage where we could accept the curatorial framework and move on to a stage of production. Radhika Subramaniam, the director of the galleries, urged me to know exactly where every piece would go in the gallery space.

I began to tighten my checklist with the pieces that would be part of the show, to communicate my thoughts and decisions with the research team, and to conduct a visual analysis of the market in Quito in order to develop an aesthetic that would function for the NYC space.

I then produced a virtual gallery on Illustrator to make sure that I had a very clear vision where each piece would go, and in which format, material and position.

In a next step, questions of feasibility, sourcing, production, printing and potential Plan B`s were addressed.

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COMMUNICATIONS WITH TEAM December 8th, 2016 Update Email to the Team Dear all, I am sending you an important update on the exhibition. The first part is a general update with dates and lists. The second part concerns your contribution to the exhibition. Please read it carefully and respond with the pending tasks until Sunday, 11th of December. _________ DATES: Sascia arriving in NYC: around the 12th Jan (tbc) Install: 17-19th of Jan On view: Jan 20th - Feb 5th Official Opening Event: 24th of Jan (tbc) Deinstall: 6th and 7th of February

PRODUCTION

GENERAL UPDATE: The exhibition is taking form. We are in the process of finalizing the checklist to start production.

Curatorial framework: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B3y7lKbpnHv_dkp6Q3RORmtiQm8 Current checklist: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1creX_VAIM5Rjbb7PaehWoe6e9DXiG-Z9-CniirMFVp0/edit Each project has its own section which allows you to see which of your works are expected to be on view. It also shows which ones are still not finished (marked in red) —> we have to keep on moving! :) Curatorial Layout on the floor: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B3y7lKbpnHv_dkp6Q3RORmtiQm8 (gallery space) https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B3y7lKbpnHv_dkp6Q3RORmtiQm8 (hallway) ______ NEXT STEPS FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION: I have to ask all team members to send me the missing files, documents, description of their work in progress by SUNDAY, the 11th of Dec. I am required to deliver the very final checklist next week so I need to make sure there will be no surprises.

Whatever works are not available to me until then unfortunately cannot be considered for the exhibition.

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Please upload those files into this folder by Sunday or share a link with me of where I can find the items: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B3y7lKbpnHv_UXRLUEkzWlN3MWc Please look at the attached image and let me know whether the question in correspondence to your contribution (alternative propositions are welcome!) and the market terminologies work for you.

PRODUCTION

G+T: CONCEPT: All of your displays follow the following principle: Each of your projects will have one key question on top of them that speaks to your more in more general terms (so that people without a specific interest in Quito will be curious to look further). On the left side of your wall space would be work that speaks to the “condition”, the urgency of a site (e.g. the history of landownership explaining the condition of uneven land distribution today) and next to it would be your strategy/ tool with which you address this matter (e.g. by visual representation to foster solidarity networks between the markets in Quito).

There will be market terminologies printed in large letters on the top of the wall that signal the market pressures that your project deals with, e.g. UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT, URBAN EXPANSION, EXCHANGE, LUXURY TOURISM etc…

Works to be displayed:

Los Mercados de Quito History of Landownership - part 1 History of Landownership - all icons as a zine Potato Value Chain (in one piece) Migratory Flows Rhythms of Mercado San Roque

screen + headphones screen + headphones print print print two screens on window - facing inside and outside

WHAT I NEED FROM YOU BY SUNDAY: - please upload the market video materials (time lapses) into the folder with the link above - so I can select the material that will be on display and the sound material.

- Please let me know whether the production of a zine with the history of landownership is desired and feasible in time for both of you - if you have particular ideas on dimension, material or special display then also let me know.

- Please look at the attached image and let me know whether the question in correspondence to your contribution (alternative propositions are welcome!) and the market terminologies work for you. Dimensions and forms of display are currently still subject to change.

M+M CONCEPT: All of your displays follow the following principle: Each of your projects will have one key question on top of them that speaks to your more in more general terms (so that people without a specific interest in Quito will be curious to look further). On the left side of your wall space would be work that URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / SASCIA BAILER / PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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speaks to the “condition”, the urgency of a site (e.g. the history of landownership explaining the condition of uneven land distribution today) and next to it would be your strategy/ tool with which you address this matter (e.g. by visual representation to foster solidarity networks between the markets in Quito).

There will be market terminologies printed in large letters on the top of the wall that signal the market pressures that your project deals with, e.g. UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT, URBAN EXPANSION, EXCHANGE, LUXURY TOURISM etc…

Works to be displayed:

Life in the comunas (collage of images) En Comunas platform (video by Mateo) Privatization of communal lands (map)

print print print

PRODUCTION

- I envision one collage of images and maybe sound bites that gives the audience an introduction into the type of life that is under threat - what is it that turns land into territory and makes it sacred for the comunas - to show that it is problematic to have private land growing into comunal lands.

- The second part consists of the video produced by Mateo explaining the tool - that addresses the spatial and cultural urgencies mapped out in the collage of images.

WHAT I NEED FROM YOU BY SUNDAY: - For the first part I need you to upload (into the link above) a selection of images and maybe other materials (sound, video, drawings) that speak to this idea of comunal life and territory - until Sunday, the 11th!

- I would also need to know from Mateo if you can modify the map in which the privatization of comunal lands becomes visible - so that this argument becomes very clear for the audience (we spoke about this when we skyped). E.g.: map of comunal lands (result of participatory mapping) and the privately owned land (official data) and how it overlaps. In the wall text we could explain how the comunas weren’t aware of this process and how your work helps their struggles for autonomy…

- Mateo, also please let me know whether you would be able to help in the creation of an outline of Quito on the floor of the gallery space as I told you via whatsapp.

- Please look at the attached image and let me know whether the question in correspondence to your contribution (alternative propositions are welcome!) and the market terminologies work for you. Dimensions and forms of display are currently still subject to change.

MASOOM: CONCEPT: All of your displays follow the following principle: Each of your projects will have one key question on top of them that speaks to your more in more general terms (so that people without a specific interest in Quito will be curious to look further). On the left side of your wall space would be work that speaks to the “condition”, the urgency of a site (e.g. the history of landownership explaining the condition of uneven land distribution today) and next to it would be your strategy/ tool with which you address this matter (e.g. by visual representation to foster solidarity networks between the markets in Quito).

There will be market terminologies printed in large letters on the top of the wall that signal the market pressures that your project deals with, e.g. UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT, URBAN EXPANSION, EXCHANGE, LUXURY TOURISM etc…

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Schools of Hope - Workshop Images Interactive Component Concept of Curriculum of Schools of Hope Drawings of migrant workers in Mercado (animated) Poster for Schools of Hope

print tba print screen print

PRODUCTION

- I envision your contribution to consist of a screen that shows an animation of your drawings, speaking to the condition of migrant workers in the market. This would be next to the diagram of G+T that speaks to the migrant flows into the market and into the world, building a bridge into your work more globally.

- Next to it would be a collage of images from the workshop, your curriculum design and the poster.

WHAT I NEED FROM YOU BY SUNDAY: - please upload the images from the workshops that you onto the folder mentioned above. So I can make a final selection in terms of amount and dimension and thematic focus.

- please let me know whether you will be able to produce the animated film, whether it will have audio or be silent, and how long you intent it to make. If there are special requirements for display please also let me know.

- I need to have a concrete vision for the participatory element that you mentioned.

Please let me know what you would want it to be and what type of wall space, modes of display etc you need.

- Please look at the attached image and let me know whether the question in correspondence to your contribution (alternative propositions are welcome!) and the market terminologies work for you. Dimensions and forms of display are currently still subject to change.

ZANNY: CONCEPT: All of your displays follow the following principle: Each of your projects will have one key question on top of them that speaks to your more in more general terms (so that people without a specific interest in Quito will be curious to look further). On the left side of your wall space would be work that speaks to the “condition”, the urgency of a site (e.g. the history of landownership explaining the condition of uneven land distribution today) and next to it would be your strategy/ tool with which you address this matter (e.g. by visual representation to foster solidarity networks between the markets in Quito).

There will be market terminologies printed in large letters on the top of the wall that signal the market pressures that your project deals with, e.g. UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT, URBAN EXPANSION, EXCHANGE, LUXURY TOURISM etc… #Allyouneedisecuador - Nation and City Branding for Tourism Purposes Interurban Competition, World Class Tourism, Bradning and Everyday Life The Future of Two Markets

screen + headphones print out print

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From Global Pressures to Local Action (introduction disgram)

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WHAT I NEED FROM YOU BY SUNDAY: - please send me a final selection of 1-3 tourist campaign videos (and potentially other tourist materials like magazines, pictures) that you want to have on display.

- if possible, please send me your revised diagram.

- please also send me the file in spanish and english for the booklet (you can upload to the drive - link see above) - Please look at the attached image and let me know whether the question in correspondence to your contribution (alternative propositions are welcome!) and the market terminologies work for you. Dimensions and forms of display are currently still subject to change.

PRODUCTION

SINEAD CONCEPT: All of your displays follow the following principle: Each of your projects will have one key question on top of them that speaks to your more in more general terms (so that people without a specific interest in Quito will be curious to look further). On the left side of your wall space would be work that speaks to the “condition”, the urgency of a site (e.g. the history of landownership explaining the condition of uneven land distribution today) and next to it would be your strategy/ tool with which you address this matter (e.g. by visual representation to foster solidarity networks between the markets in Quito).

There will be market terminologies printed in large letters on the top of the wall that signal the market pressures that your project deals with, e.g. UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT, URBAN EXPANSION, EXCHANGE, LUXURY TOURISM etc…

Works to be displayed:

Reading/Research Space The wonder and the anti-wonder

installation installation

From Global Pressures to Local Action (introduction disgram)

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WHAT I NEED FROM YOU BY SUNDAY: - please send me a list of books you would want to include in the reading corner - please send me a list of images, brochures, newspaper articles and texts that you would want to include on the tables / “vitrines” so we can start to think about production - Please look at the attached image and let me know whether the question in correspondence to your contribution (alternative propositions are welcome!) and the market terminologies work for you. Dimensions and forms of display are currently still subject to change.

Thank you very much for your help! If you have any questions please let me know!

A big hug, Sascia URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / SASCIA BAILER / PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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CHECKLIST OF WORKS

PRODUCTION

Which works make it into the show? This document includes all the necessary information, incl. Author, dimensions, stage of production, etc.

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MARKET RESEARCH: VISUAL ANALYSIS

PRODUCTION

Which visual vocabulary do we find within the market of Quito? How are signs written? On which materials? In which colors and fonts? How are things carried? How is the produce presented? How do they arrange social spaces of gathering? A close look onto the Mercado San Roque helped me in defining key market items that could ground the NYC exhibition within the visual language of Quito.

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EXHIBITION PLANNING

PRODUCTION

What goes into the show, and where, and in which size? The very detailed and toscale- mock ups of the gallery space helped us a lot in the production phase.

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PRODUCTION TIMELINE

PRODUCTION

Having clarified all the matters of content, we soon had to start with the sourcing and the production of the individual elements of the show. I produce another timeline that included tasks and instructions for each day and each project:

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PRODUCTION

Furthermore, I had to source key items of the show that were supposed to form part of the gallery space. Some of them were available online, others had to be sourced locally in shops, backyards, local food markets in New York (like the wooden boxes, pallets etc).

Many of the design works that were included in the show were visual materials that had to be printed in large scales, and in high quality. These prints had to be coordinated carefully as re-prints would be costly and time-consuming. We were very lucky to be able to produce many prints in the local print shops at the university:

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COMMUNICATIONS & PR

PRODUCTION

Meanwhile, we had to get the communications / PR of the show going. I created a visual language for the posters, flyers, wall text, labels and website. The same visual of the upside down neighborhood of San Roque in Quito formed part of our posters and flyers:

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PRODUCTION

Our website is hosted on wordpress and gives an overview over our work, the site, and our projects, inviting the viewer to our exhibition (https://shiftingurbanecologiesblog.wordpress.com)

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INVITATIONS TO OPENING We created a list of people, fellow students, co-workers, key institutions whom we would invite to the exhibition: Dear colleagues and friends, Please join us for the opening of our exhibition, Urgencia Territorial/Territorial Urgency, which displays the work produced through the two year collaboration between our thesis team and partners in Ecuador, particularly Red de Saberes, the activist collective based in Quito.

The opening reception will take place on Tuesday, January 24th from 6.30 - 9 pm at the Sheila Johnson Design Center (66 Fifth Ave at 13th Street). Our collaborators and friends from Quito, Luis Herrera and Ana Rodriguez (both members of Red de Saberes), will join us for the opening, as well as Jeanne van Heeswijk, artist and participant in Spaces of Hope, a workshop organized in Mercado San Roque, Quito, in August 2015.

PRODUCTION

As many of you know, Mercado San Roque is the largest traditional food market in Quito.

Even though the market is a significant social, cultural and economic hub for many, it is often devalued in public perception as a site of crime, chaos and informal labor. With the increase of global political and economic pressures, the market is under threat of displacement. Associations of market workers and local allied activist groups have come together in resistance, exposing and challenging the state and global market forces that create precarious conditions in this vital site of exchange.

The exhibition features five project proposals developed from our intensive research and field work, as well as works from Red de Saberes that introduce the viewer to everyday life in the market.

The exhibition will be on view from January 20th to February 6th, 2017.

For more information, please see https://shiftingurbanecologiesblog.wordpress.com.

We hope to see you on the 24th of January!

Best, Sascia Bailer, Tait Mandler, Gamar Markarian, Masoom Moitra, Mateo Fernandez-Muro, Maria Morales, Alexandra Venner, Sinead Petrasek

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INSTALLATION OF THE EXHIBITION

PRODUCTION

On January 17th - 19th we installed the showunder the main lead of Daisy Wong (Gallery Manager) at the Sheila Johnson Design Center. It was a lenghty process, which went went smoothly for the most part.

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EXHIBITION

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URGENCIA TERRITORIAL OPENS WITH AN ARTIST CONVERSATION The opening of the exhibition took place on Jan 24th, at 6pm at the Sheila Johnson Design Center. We opened the exhibition by a roundtable conversation with the participating artists including our collaborators from Red de Saberes from Quito. After an introduction into the Mercado San Roque and the work of Red de Saberes, I introduced the exhibition with its curatorial framework, followed by a project description by each of the project makers. The one hour conversation was rounded off with a Q&A session that then continued in the gallery space over Ecuadorian food and drinks.

Schedule for Opening Conversation: 6.30 pm Introduction to Project + Introduction to speakers Miguel Introduction of the “situation in Quito” - MSR, centro historico, public perception of the place, work of red de saberes, institutional and grassroots engagement Ana and Luis Scope of our projects - with focus on strategies All of us [Here I think we can each speak to our projects shortly and focus on the different tools and strategies we have used to insert ourselves into this “contested” site — Sinead and I will foreground the exhibition as a strategy to place these local struggles on a more global agenda and to make visible and accessible the struggles of the market for a wider audience] General discussion on international collaborations Q&A with audience —> open discussion with audience We should come to an end by 7.30pm 7.30 - 9pm - food and drinks in the gallery space (yum yum!) ______ Opening Speech / Curatorial Framework “Thank you for joining us today for the inauguration of the exhibition Urgencia Territorial/ Territorial Urgency – this is an important moment in the process of our 2 year collaboration because the efforts of the team have reached a new public stage.

After several presentations in New York, conferences in Athens and Alternative Urban Forums in Quito during the UN Habitat 3 conference – this exhibition puts the different projects into dialogue and recognizes the local struggles of the Mercado on a global stage.

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january 20th - february 6th, 2017 The exhibition is founded upon the premise of the two concepts of the market – the global economic markets, like tourism, agribusiness, neoliberal policies on the one hand and the local, traditional food market, like Mercado San Roque, on the other.

This interplay can be seen in the large intro diagram in the hallway. Here it becomes visible, how the global market forces have created increasing pressure onto the scale of the local market, turning Mercado San Roque into a vulnerable site.

The conditions of the Mercado propel a “territorial urgency,” as a site in which the social, economic and cultural politics insist on a demand for action. Our argument is that the collaborative research and design projects can form a counter practice to the ongoing market forces and can promote social justice within the urban realm.

EXHIBITION

This exhibition features five site-specific proposals in which each of the projects formulates its own entry point into the tensions around the Mercado – and has developed its own strategy and tools to address the urgencies of the market and beyond. The group seeks to respond these urgencies in their research agenda by focusing on intersecting issues of indigenous rights, uneven development, aggressive tourism campaigns, cultural heritage, alternative pedagogies and food sovereignty. ● For example, the project of Gamar and Tait has focused on visual representation as a tool to visualize the rural urban flows of goods and people, highlighting the need for an efficient solidarity network between the different social groups within the public markets of Quito. ● Mateo and Maria’s project is aimed at creating autonomy for the urban indigenous communities of Quito by building a pilot website in which the inhabitants of Quito’s 49 indigenous communes can connect to map their own territory, to share their practices and to build a sharing economy. ● Masoom has worked with migrant families in the Mercado and the adjacent bilingual school, seeking for ways to support their struggles. For her, these struggles are a global phenomenon, so she has created workshop series with the Ecuadorian community in Queens strengthening their networks on a global scale. ● Zanny has focused on tourism as a global economic force that creates immense pressure for the Mercado – she has developed a small comic-like booklet that traces the powerrelations on a global and a more local level, so that awareness for these tourism mechanisms can be raised amongst the local vendors at the market.

Sinead has focused on arts-based community practices and how they try to shift the public perception of the Mercado while putting their political agenda before their aesthetic choices.

As we can see these different projects have looked at the Mercado and other contested sites in Ecuador from very different perspectives. Together, the works formulate an alternative vision towards a more locally empowered and just city.

In a next step I would like to open up a conversation with each of the project participants to gain a deeper understanding about the strategies and tools that they have developed along the way…”

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EXHIBITION

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EXHIBITION impressions from the opening

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EXHIBITION installation views & project presentations

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INTRODUCTORY DIAGRAM From Global Market Pressures to Local Market Actions Diagram, 44 x 118 inches, 2017

EXHIBITION

Free trade, privatization, excess of public spending, open markets â&#x20AC;&#x201D; these are terms that we often hear but rarely in direct relation to our personal daily actions. This diagram is an attempt to link the global market pressures of neoliberal policies to the local struggles of a marketplace in Quito. From this locus, the diagram expands again to demonstrate how a collaborative solidarity network, driven by critical research and design practices, can be mobilized to counter these pressures.

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EXHIBITION

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URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / SASCIA BAILER / PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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Red de Saberes: A Network of Knowledge for a more just Mercado San Roque

by Luis Herrera Red de Saberes [Network of Knowledge] is a Quito-based activist group that consists of a diverse group of artists, curators, scholars, politicians, lawyers and activists; they were one of our key collaborators on site. Their interest is to strengthen the ongoing forms of resistance within the Mercado San Roque, a traditional food market located near the historic Center of Quito. By emphasizing the variety of forms of knowledge, diverse cultures and generations within the market, the members of Red de Saberes want to promote an alternative vision of the market - to work against the narrative of the market as a contested urban space, threatened with displacement due to urban renewal plans.

EXHIBITION

100 Portraits of Mercado San Roque Luis Herrera Video, 5 minutes, 2016 Luis Herrera, photographer and activist member of Red de Saberes, takes us on a walk through Mercado San Roque and the adjacent neighborhood, letting us experience the cultural diversity, multiple generations and social origins of the people who work, live and play in the neighborhood of San Roque in Quito.

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EXHIBITION

january 20th - february 6th, 2017

URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / SASCIA BAILER / PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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january 20th - february 6th, 2017

Voices of Quito (Interactie Audio Piece) Qué está pasando en Quito? What are the struggles? Who are the people in power? Who is at stake? What are the tensions that exist between the different sites across town?

Five Quiteños -- including activists, scholars, cultural producers -- share their answers from a very personal perspective. These “Voices of Quito” allow the audience to get a deeper understanding of the social, political and economic tensions in the city that formed the basis for the research and design works at display.

EXHIBITION

Speakers: The Comunas of Quito by Marco Leon Siza (architect, president of indigenous Comuna of Tola Chica, member of activist collective Red de Saberes) The Mercado San Roque by Galo Guachamin (vendor, coordinator of the association Frente de Defensa y Modernización del Mercado San Roque) The Economic and Political Condition of Ecuador by Tomás Quevedo (sociologist & cultural theorist, lecturer at the Universidad Central del Ecuador) The Centro Historico by Ana Rodriguez (curator and researcher, former Vice Minister of Culture of Ecuador) The Bilingual School of San Roque by Marco Leon Siza (architect, president of indigenous Comuna of Tola Chica, member of activist collective Red de Saberes)

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EXHIBITION

january 20th - february 6th, 2017

URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / SASCIA BAILER / PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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january 20th - february 6th, 2017

EXHIBITION

COLLECTIVE CONSTRUCTION OF THE MARKET (PARTICIPATORY PIECE)

URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / SASCIA BAILER / PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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EXHIBITION

january 20th - february 6th, 2017

URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / SASCIA BAILER / PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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january 20th - february 6th, 2017

The Future of Two Markets: Tourism Branding & the Struggles of Traditional Food Markets

by Alexandra Venner Global market forces such as tourism, city branding and urban development contribute to increasing inequality in Quito. Inter-urban competition plays a key role, a process in which the government sells its assets on the global stage for international investment. The creation of “urban spectacles” lead to the disinvestment and exclusion of other less “marketable” areas. Mercado San Roque, as a contested urban space, stands in stark contrast to the colonial city center, a UNESCO World Heritage site that receives global attention and investments.

Alexandra has created an easily reproducible booklet that explains the relationship between the global political and economic forces and the way in which they negatively affect the local market scale. Ultimately, this pedagogical tool seeks to raise awareness amongst the local inhabitants about the mechanisms of tourism-led development.

EXHIBITION

All you need is Ecuador, Official Tourism Campaign Video, 1 minute, 2016 This video is part of the official tourism campaign of Ecuador promoting its mainland and the Galapagos islands for a global audience. The video portrays a harmonious vision of the country, focusing on its picturesque landscape and seemingly forgetting to mention its people.

The Future of Two Markets Print, 11 x 17 inches, 2016 “The Future of Two Markets” is an accessible, entertaining and politicizing narrative to understand the unforeseeable consequences shaping the future city of Quito and, ultimately, its future market(s).

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EXHIBITION

january 20th - february 6th, 2017

URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / SASCIA BAILER / PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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january 20th - february 6th, 2017

Allied with the Antimaravilla

by Sinead Petrasek This urban research project looks at the conflicting relationship between the historic center, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and Mercado San Roque, which is known conventionally as the antimaravilla, or “anti-wonder.” Sinead examines the recent efforts of several arts-based practitioners in Quito to validate the market as a culturally significant site, drawing on critical urban and aesthetic theory.

This work considers how artistic practices can ally with urban political struggles by prioritizing the needs of the community over aesthetic concerns. The collage of materials presented here speaks to the public discourse around Mercado San Roque as a contested urban site in contrast to the historic city center, and showcases the materials developed by various cultural groups and institutions in support of the market.

Mercado San Roque: Una Casa Para Todos Video, 23 minutes, 2015 A video produced through the Mediación Comunitaria initiative of Quito’s Fundación Museos de la Ciudad, in collaboration with el Frente de Defensa y Modernización del Mercado San Roque to shift the public perception of the market.

Collage of Materials on the Public Perception of Mercado San Roque Various flyers, newspaper articles, posters, 2016

EXHIBITION

Reading Corner: Resources on Urban Theory, Art and Criticism 12 books

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EXHIBITION

january 20th - february 6th, 2017

URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / SASCIA BAILER / PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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january 20th - february 6th, 2017

Red de Mercados: Building Solidarity Across Quito’s Public Markets

by Tait Mandler & Gamar Markarian Quito’s public markets, especially Mercado San Roque, are in a difficult position: the internal political associations made up of market vendors, carriers and sellers are in conflict, the city threatens to displace these traditional sites of exchange, and supermarket chains provide growing competition. Faced with these concerns, a group of leaders from several public markets in Quito are trying to create a solidarity network.

Inspired by their activism, Gamar and Tait use visual representation as a tool to support the creation of an effective solidarity network. Their design work forms the basis for a conversation between the various groups affected, allowing for a deeper understanding of the national and international flow of goods and people between rural and urban realms.

EXHIBITION

The History of Land in the Ecuadorian Andes Booklet, 2016 The booklet is based on historical research into how land was worked and owned in Ecuador from the Pre-Inca period until today’s (post)-neoliberal period. It traces the roots of uneven land ownership in Ecuador, acknowledging that today’s condition is a result of ongoing class, race and gender struggles that have been in development for centuries.

Potato Supply and Value Chain of the Ecuadorian Sierra Infographic, 58 x 120 inches, 2016 How does the potato, one of the most important indigenous crop of the Andes, reach the consumer? Who produces it? Who owns the land? Who profits? Why are there only a few varieties of potato on the market, out of several hundreds?

Gamar and Tait traveled the route of the potato value and supply chain investigating the hidden social, political and economic layers of Ecuador’s native crop. The diagram demonstrates how a scalar perspective can reveal connections between seemingly disparate social issues and sheds light on the rural-urban flows that exist between the goods and people of Quito’s public markets.

Los Mercados de Quito Video, 14 minutes, 2015 “The supermarkets are killing the public markets step by step,” states one of the leaders of Mercado San Roque, referring to the increasing “supermarketization” of Quito. The film focuses on the contrasts between public markets and supermarket chains in Quito, highlighting the need for dialogue in the construction of a solidarity network across the city’s public markets.

Migration and Displacement Patterns Infographic, 32 x 74 inches, 2015 To complement the diagram of the potato value and supply chain, Gamar and Tait also considered the flows of people: who moves between the rural and URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / SASCIA BAILER / PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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EXHIBITION

urban regions? What are their reasons? Agrarian reforms, coupled with agricultural industrialization, have pushed many small-scale farmers into Quito, where they often find themselves in precarious working and housing conditions. Others migrate globally; New York constitutes the largest Ecuadorian community outside of Ecuador.

URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / SASCIA BAILER / PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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january 20th - february 6th, 2017

(Re)production of Urban Knowledge in San Roque

by Masoom Moitra Many indigenous, Kichwa-speaking* women and their families move to the city from the countryside in search of work in Mercado San Roque. The Bilingual School for Kichwa and Spanish (Centro Experimental de Educación Intercultural Bilingüe de Quito - CEDEIB-Q) that is adjacent to the market provides an important link to their labor, combining the working day with the care and education of their children. Stigmatized because it is an indigenous center, the school also faces harsh funding rules from the government, making it difficult to run.

Escuelas de Esperanza/Schools of Hope proposes after-school workshops for migrant mothers and children, making visible the indigenous systems of knowledge and their importance for community organizations. Recognizing that the struggles of migrant workers of San Roque exist in similar ways throughout the world, Masoom has initiated cultural exchanges through workshops between the Ecuadorian immigrant community in New York and the school in Quito. In order to embed local struggles within a global network of solidarity, she has has established working relationships with the Ecuadorian embassy in New York, the project Immigrant Movement International at the Queens Museum and the Ministry of Culture in Ecuador.

EXHIBITION

*Kichwa is the primary indigenous language in Ecuador that is estimated to be spoken by 1,000,000 people. Kichwa is a variety of Quechuan which is also spoken in Colombia and Peru.

Project Proposals: Escuelas de Esperanza/Schools of Hope Print, various sizes, 2016 Impressions: Escuelas de Esperanza/Schools of Hope Images, 8 x 12 inches, 2016 A selection of images from the workshop series in New York with Immigrant Movement International at the Queens Museum.

Report: Escuelas de Esperanza/Schools of Hope Print, 8 x 11 inches, 2016 Posters: Escuelas de Esperanza/Schools of Hope Print, 2 x 4 inches, 2016 Letters to the Ecuadorian Embassy in New York, from the Ministry of Culture in Ecuador & Immigrant Movement International at the Queens Museum Print, 11 x 17 inches, 2016 Masoom’s work expands from a pedagogical to a political level by involving the Ecuadorian embassy, ministries and cultural institutions. Her aim is to create institutional networks of solidarity on a global scale for the struggles of Ecuadorian migrant women and their children.

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EXHIBITION

january 20th - february 6th, 2017

URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / SASCIA BAILER / PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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january 20th - february 6th, 2017

En Comun(a): Designing Self-Governance Tools for an Emancipatory Urban Production

by Mateo Fernandez-Muro & Maria Morales

EXHIBITION

Territory is central to the worldview of the indigenous people of Ecuador, as it combines the physical aspects of land with spiritual and social elements. Agricultural reforms have pushed many indigenous people from the rural areas into Quito, where 49 indigenous comunas exist today. Comunas are self-governing territories, recognized as politically autonomous entities according to the Constitution. However, on official maps they only appear as dots without territorial definition, which makes it easy for private property to take over communal lands. The recent formation of Pueblo Kitu Kara as a “Federation of Communes & Indigenous Communities” emerged as a collective response to this urban expansion.

Maria and Mateo developed a tool to support the comunas’ struggles for autonomy: En Comun(a) is helping residents of indigenous comunas in Quito to share resources and improve the social and economic infrastructure of their communities.

The team has worked with 18 comunas of Quito to produce a pilot website that maps their needs and resources, making it easier for the comuneros to connect and work collectively. Ultimately, this tool could help the indigenous residents with a range of community development projects, ranging from cooperative banks to building homes and connecting employers with skilled workers.

Their project was awarded the second prize of Van Alen Institute’s “Urban SOS: Fair Share challenge.”

Life in Quito’s Autonomous Indigenous Comunas Prints, various dimensions, 2016 These images were taken by Mateo and Maria during their field visits in the three comunas of Tola Chica, Santa Clara and Cocotog, located within the Metropolitan District of Quito.

Privatisation of Indigenous Communal Lands Print, 2 x 3 inches, 2016 Communal lands are currently only shown as dots on official maps. Through participatory mapping with the comunas the actual borders of their territory have been defined. For the first time the comuneros were able to see the amount of private lands that are slowly infiltrating their territories.The aim is to continue the participatory mapping process to obtain legal land titles for their communal lands to protect them from increasing privatization.

En Comun(a) - The Pilot Website Explained Video, 15 minutes, 2016 Mateo presents the work of the team for the AUTONOMA conference in Athens in 2015. He focuses on the developed tools for self-governance of the indigenous communes.

En Comun(a) in Detail: Sharing Economy Booklet, 2017 URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / SASCIA BAILER / PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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january 20th - february 6th, 2017

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EXHIBITION

january 20th - february 6th, 2017

URGENCIA TERRITORIAL / SASCIA BAILER / PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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EXHIBITION

january 20th - february 6th, 2017

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REFLECTION

REFLECTIONS ON PROCESS When I first raised interest in becoming part of this collaborative research project in Ecuador I did not know how intense, lasting and fruitful this engagement would be. It has been a very challenging but also joyful journey, in which I learned a lot -- not only about artistic and curatorial practice but also about collaborating across language barriers, continents, different disciplines and methodological practices. I hope to have crafted a publication that allows the reader to gain an understanding of the far-reaching research and organizational work that goes into exhibitionmaking.

“URGENCIA TERRITORIAL” shows examples of collaborative practice that engage critically with the urban realm and its design practices – and I believe that this exhibition doesn’t only speak to this thematic focus but that the process of its production is an argument for collaborative critical urban practice in itself. The exhibition can be seen as culmination of an almost two year engagement with Mercado San Roque – at the same time it is a point of departure for all of our individual practices.

This exhibition has created a new public stage for our work and for the local struggles within the market, making a case for a more just city through collaborative practices. From here, we hope to establish a professional path in which we can continue to foster the deep understanding of a local site, like the Mercado San Roque, the sincere advocacy for social and territorial justice, and our thorough theoretical and practical skills. Many of us are freelancing, assisting artists, art institutions or NGO’s, others are working for the UN or foundations. In whichever way, we hope to address the Territorial Urgency of today’s world from various angles, in search of a more just urban future.

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CREDITS

May 2017, Germany Publication Credits: Edited by Sascia Bailer Layout & Text by Sascia Bailer Images by Petros Gourgouris (Exhibition Opening, Installation Views), Chris Hyuan Choi (Installation Views), Research Group (Field Trip, Exhibition Opening) Art Works by Gamar Markarian, Tait Mandler, Masoom Moitra, Mateo Fernandez-Muro, Maria Morales, Alexandra Venner, Sinead Petrasek, Luis Herrera Project Partners: Red de Saberes, Quito Frente de Defensa de Mercado San Roque (FDMSR) Funding Partners: School of Design Strategies, Parsons School of Design Sheila Johnson Design Center, New York Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes University Student Senate, The New School