Projects

Face Your World, StedelijkLab Slotervaart

Amsterdam, Slotervaart, Jan 2005

Duration: 01.2005 - 07.2011
Location: StedelijkLab Slotervaart (UrbanLab Slotervaart), Amsterdam
Participants: 600
Visitors: 3,000
Number of events: 2
Additional Presentations: Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (15.10.2005-16.11.2005)

The Face Your World (2002) project, conceived in Columbus, Ohio (USA) [see also 3.8, pp. 23-24], offers children a collective learning environment in which they can learn how to investigate, as well as adapt, their living environment. The Interactor, a 3-D multi-user computer environment, allows children to 'engineer' their surroundings. On the initiative of SKOR (a Dutch foundation for art and public space) and AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts), Van Heeswijk and architect Dennis Kaspori developed a practical educational model for participation in urban renewal aimed at secondary school students (specifically VMBO-level, lower secondary vocational education), devising a completely new version of the Interactor in collaboration with IJsfontein.

Face Your World StedelijkLab Slotervaart started in early 2005 in the Staalmanplein neighbourhood, an area undergoing drastic urban renewal, including the planned creation of a park about 13,500 m2 to serve as the district's new public heart. Van Heeswijk worked hard to ensure this commission went to Face Your World, in order to create an urban-planning process based around intensive participation by local residents and striving to invest urban regeneration, usually based on economic principles, with existing social and cultural capital. From January through July, Face Your World set up camp in an old gymnasium, on the site of the future park, transformed into an 'urban lab': a place to discuss and work on the design of the park with students, local residents and other interested parties. Each day, pupils from the Professor Einstein Elementary School and students from the Calvijn met Junior College (a VMBO school), along with neighbourhood residents, explored their surroundings with Van Heeswijk and Kaspori and invited experts. Collectively they worked on the design of their future park, addressing not only what facilities should be available, but also how it should look and their personal roles within it. StedelijkLab Slotervaart provided a learning environment as part of a public process of planning for the neighbourhood's future. Six months later the participants presented their design to the local authorities and other local residents. After some minimal modifications, the borough council officially approved the communal design for the 'Staalman Park' on 1 March 2006. The whole project and the way in which it interrelated several complex issues - urban renewal, practical education, neighbourhood participation and the role of art in public space within the concrete context of a design project - was presented and discussed at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. The model StedelijkLab is to be set up at four new locations, two in the Netherlands and two abroad.

related blogposts

Design Staalmanpark receives green light

Mar 2006

related essays

Playing the City

Mar 2008

public presentation
public presentation
workshop
workshop
workshop
workshop
public presentation
public presentation
design
design

websitewww.faceyourworld.net

related projects
participants


It's OK... commoning uncertainties

Oude Kerk, Amsterdam
2023


ULTRADEPENDENT PUBLIC SCHOOL (UPS)

BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
2023


Community Wellbeing Collective (C.W.C.)

Westside Plaza Westside Plaza Shopping Centre, Wester Hailes Rd, Edinburgh EH14 2SW, Jul 2022
2022


Public Faculty No. 14

Westside Plaza Civic Square in Wester Hailes
2021


Public Faculty No. 13

Vallila, Helsinki
2019


Philadelphia Assembled

Philadelphia Museum of Art
2017


Public faculty No. 12

IGA Kienberg Park, Berlin, Germany
2017


Public Faculty No. 11

Sunset park, Brooklyn, NY, USA
2016


Public Faculty No. 10

Stolipinovo, Bulgary
2015


Public Faculty No. 9

Queens, New York
2015


Public Faculty No. 8

Hollywood Boulevard
2014


PARKWERK

Lohberg/Dinslaken
2014


Geregisseerd geluk

Stedelijk Museum 's-Hertogenbosch
2014


Habitorials

Trumpington/Cambridge
2014


Trampelpfade

Werthacker
2014


Afrikaanderwijk Cooperative

Pretoriaan 141, Rotterdam
2013


Freehouse Zuid - Wijkwaardenhuis

Pretorialaan 141, Afrikaanderwijk, Rotterdam
2013


Public Faculty No. 5

Copenhagen
2012


Public Faculty No. 4

Hayward Gallery London
2012


Homebaked Bakery

Liverpool
2012


Glücksspiel

Werthacker
2012

drawing
drawing

The Great Unpacking of Associative Life

Marche des Douves, rue des Douves, Bordeaux
2011

Installation
Installation

Talking Trash

Church Street, Goulburn NSW 2580, Australia
2010

project site
project site

2up2down / Homebaked

197-199 Oakfield Road, Liverpool
2010


Public Faculty No. 2

Oleanderplein
2010

still from video shoot
still from video shoot

It runs in the Neighbourhood

Stavanger University Hospital, Stavanger
2008


Freehouse Zuid - Radicalizing the Local

Afrikaanderwijk, Rotterdam South
2008


Fields of (inter)action

NAi, Rotterdam
2007

installation in Ram Gallery
installation in Ram Gallery

Amnesia of a Landscape

Pijnacker-Nootdorp, Lansingerland
2006


Face Your World, Museumpark

Museumpark rotterdam
2006


The Blue House

Housing Block 35 Amsterdam, IJburg
2005


In the Field of Players

witte de withstraat Rotterdam
2004


Works, Typologies and Capacities

Neue Geschelshaft Bildende Kunst, Berlin
2004


Some 7

Ludwig Museum, Budapest
2004

Design
Design

De Strip

Westwijk, Vlaardingen
2002


Face Your World

inner city, Columbus, Ohio
2002


A Paper House

Rotterdam (2001), Taipei (2004-2005), Vienna (2005)
2001


Acte de Présence - Sans Valeur

Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana
2000


Draw a line

Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery,Tokyo
2000

installation
installation

Raising a Ruckus

Kunstlerhaus Am Deich, Bremen
2000

performance
performance

An Sich

Botersloot 40, Rotterdam
2000


Freehouse - West

Rotterdam West
1999

Facade Henry Moore
Facade Henry Moore

A Christmas Pudding for Henry

Metropolitan University Gallery, Leeds
1999


The Secret City

Middelburg
1997


Beyond ethics & aesthetics

De Unie, Rotterdam
1997


State of Mind

Villa Alckmaer Rotterdam
1996

installation
installation

Break. Dance.

Cleveland Gallery London
1996


Outside Livingroom

Mookhoekplein Overschie
1994


I + the Other. Art and the Human Condition

Beurs van Berlage, Amsterdam
1994


Room with a view

Duende Rotterdam
1993


Room with a view (Private)

Amsterdam, Rotterdam
1993


Room with a view (Longing)

Rheinische Landklinik Kleef
1993


Room with a view (The Neighbour)

Maritime museum Prins Hendrik Rotterdam
1993


The Office

Heurne - Hemden
1993


The Dinner

Rotterdam
1993