Duration: 09.29.2010 - 10.02.2010
Location: Oleanderplein
Participants: 50
Visitors:
Number of Events: 3

In April 2010 Jeanne van Heeswijk moved into her new studio at the Sint Andriestraat in the Oleander Neighbourhood in the South of Rotterdam. Three empty shops and two apartments next to the Oleander square. A square with a bad reputation due to cultural nuisance. It is small square with a playground, a football field and 14 benches. There is always a mixed group of people present at the square. Mothers with children, groups of young and old men, Antillean, Turkish, Moroccan, Dutch and Bulgarian people. The square is lively and divers and it quickly felt like home.

At the 18th of August 2010 there was a shooting incident that attracted a lot of media attention. The local government reacted imiddiately with 24-hour surveillance, mobile camera's, an urban marine, police by car, by motorbike, by horse, by bike and walking around a by then empty square. The result was al lot of insecurity in the neighbourhood and the question was how to pick up the conversation again.

Public Faculty No. 2 questioned the role of public space in the contemporary city and the notion of the increasing regulations and limitations that imply a feeling of safety. Whenever somebody sat down a bench immediately a waiter came out with a beautifully set table and offered coffee or tea. It was the start of a conversation about the perception of the square and what is desirable cultural behaviour. The answers and thoughts where written on the table cloth. A cup of coffee as an urban intervention.