Power and Reality, Power of Health, Power of Shelter, Project

Workshop: take back power in space

This workshop was part of our ongoing research. During this workshop the participants experienced the relationship between power and space. The participants were devided into groups, working on the same keyword related to one of our lenses, Power and Health, Power and Reality and Power and Shelter.

The first groups had an empty room and a stack of material to work with. They had to implement the keywords during the building session in some kind of way. We captured and mapped the variety of dynamics in the different groups and the way they approached the research by making. In some groups we noticed the participants working together, first discussing how to approach it before they started building. During the build they took moments to stop, experience the structure and concepts they build, discuss how it made them feel and what they would need to improve and contintue building with that knowledge. In other groups we noticed that there were one or two leaders who started to build whereas the other participants would watch and sometimes interact.

The second session with three groups had the choice to work with what the first groups already build, or to demolish it and start with a clean slate. They chose to demolish and used the entire room for their build. This second session was also separated in three groups with the keywords that they had to implement in the build. However, the instruction was that they could use the entire space, and that they didn’t have to work in groups necessarily. It was interesting to see that a few participants immediately took the power to overrule the space, they tried to use the entire space for themselves while other people tried to collaborate with other participants. At one point there was an intervention where the workshopleaders told everybody to stop for a minute and start to explore what they had build with their body. In the end it was one big space, there where no separate objects but it was all connected to eachother.

Both gatherings of participants worked for 30 minutes and afterwards we took the time to reflect on what they had build. The participants of the first session enjoyed this way of working, they experienced the space while building and adjusted the build according to their experiences. They worked together in three groups and made three seperated buildings. They tried to implement the keywords without writing down the words. They reflected on what the build made them feel and how it showed the keywords. In the second session some people experienced a lot of sensations through the materials that were used. The participants saw the space in a different perspective after they where told to expierence the space with their body. The health group found a way in this madness of power to create a place that was still comfortable, soft, calming, cosy and safe in all this crazyness and overruling buildings around them. The group dynamics where very interesting, there where a few people who took the lead and worked very individual and overruled the other buildings, while other people worked together and gave each other space. It was interesting to see that it became one build instead of three separate builds, like the first group.