What cities could be built in such a manner that we will never be told to “smile” again?
For seventy five minutes the nude performers participate in a muscular, jiggly, bawdy ode to flesh and joy, fashioning a feminist fantasy where bodies can exist free from judgment and shame.
"If I can't dance I don't want to be in your revolution," said Emma Goldman.
It began as a way to look at how men and women use city space differently. Today, however, mainstreaming has evolved into a much broader concept. It’s become a way of changing the structure and fabric of the city so that different groups of people can coexist. "For me, it’s a political approach to planning," Kail says."It’s about bringing people into spaces where they didn’t exist before or felt they had no right to exist."
"Gender can be an emotional issue," Bauer adds. "When you tell people that up until now they haven’t taken the women’s perspective into account they feel attacked. We still have people asking, ‘Is this really necessary?'"
A photography exhibit titled “Who Owns Public Space — Women’s Everyday Life in the City.” depicted the daily routines of a diverse group of women as they went about their lives in the Austrian capital. Each woman tracked a different route through the city. But the images made clear that safety and ease of movement were a priority for all of them.
It's time for feminist architects to engage the larger sphere of political activism with concrete objectives.
The project of feminist arts activism presents a whole host of questions about intersectionality and the production of space.
Exploration number: 071
Where: Stigbergstorget, Göteborg
When: 7 mars 2014
Duration: 15.00-16.00
Participants: Anneli, Jenny and Ulrika
Archive material: 199 photos (here 37 selected are shown) from two cameras attached to a pram where one did not take a single picture. 2.07 minutes of film from a digital compact camera.
