Anti-Object
MDF
220 x 65 x 55 cm.
2023
Installationview, Fabrikken For Kunst og Design (Copenhagen, DK)
The public space is a place that is open and accessible to the general public. The “ideal” public space within major cities is experienced as clean, inviting and safe. The sculpture critically explores how the built environment in public spaces are controlled in secret through behaviour-regulating design.
The sculpture is based on the so-called Camden Bench, a bench commissioned by Camden Borough Council in London as a piece of public furniture that would actively repel “anti-social behaviour” in London’s city centre. It has been produced by the UK company Factory Furniture since 2010. With its sloping surfaces and missing back-support, you cannot sit, let alone sleep, comfortably on it. It discourages loitering and gathering as it is hard and uncomfortable, only meant for a brief rest.
Anti-Object is a material and critical exploration of logic that the bench embodies - that public space should only be inviting for people already on their way somewhere else, capable bodies always on the move.
The sculpture is site-specifically made for the exhibition Wet, Work at Fabrikken For Kunst og Design. Fabrikken is located within the area of Sundholm, which is a sort of city within the city. Sundholm is a diverse and socially complex area of Copenhagen that offers transitional accommodation to unhoused adults and/or help with alcohol, drugs, mental health and/or behavioural issues. Sundholm is run by the social administration of the municipality and is an area (also) threatened by gentrification
MDF
220 x 65 x 55 cm.
2023
Installationview, Fabrikken For Kunst og Design (Copenhagen, DK)
The public space is a place that is open and accessible to the general public. The “ideal” public space within major cities is experienced as clean, inviting and safe. The sculpture critically explores how the built environment in public spaces are controlled in secret through behaviour-regulating design.
The sculpture is based on the so-called Camden Bench, a bench commissioned by Camden Borough Council in London as a piece of public furniture that would actively repel “anti-social behaviour” in London’s city centre. It has been produced by the UK company Factory Furniture since 2010. With its sloping surfaces and missing back-support, you cannot sit, let alone sleep, comfortably on it. It discourages loitering and gathering as it is hard and uncomfortable, only meant for a brief rest.
Anti-Object is a material and critical exploration of logic that the bench embodies - that public space should only be inviting for people already on their way somewhere else, capable bodies always on the move.
The sculpture is site-specifically made for the exhibition Wet, Work at Fabrikken For Kunst og Design. Fabrikken is located within the area of Sundholm, which is a sort of city within the city. Sundholm is a diverse and socially complex area of Copenhagen that offers transitional accommodation to unhoused adults and/or help with alcohol, drugs, mental health and/or behavioural issues. Sundholm is run by the social administration of the municipality and is an area (also) threatened by gentrification
