Interzona – Outerzona

Why

We headed into this (in total) six hour workshop with a lot of ambition and enthusiasm.

The context was a training workshop for the Europe Grand Central platform at a conference for European network Trans Europe Halles. And the host was an independant cultural center in Verona called Interzona – Interzona is now being closed down to give place to a fancy shopping center and a parking lot.

Our ambitions during a couple of hours of workshopping was based on the following whys…

1.

The situation is relevant to other centers all over Europe facing similar situations

Cities policies are changing which is resulting in commercial interests taking over spaces for culture – We want to explore this situation to prevent it from happening at other places

Also to learn from each other to share and develop strategies of resistance  between the indepenent culture centers of Europe

2.

We want to pinpoint the situation at Interzona to possibly help them secure another space – understanding the affect with the community

Documentation

3.

One further objective with the activity is for the participants of the workshop to learn the Europe Grand Central platform and tools

Location

Interzona, Verona, Province of Verona, Italy

Characteristics

How the audience/participants were reached or discovered

Our intentions before the Activity:

• We´ll find people at a conference of Trans Europe Halles at Interzona – contact lists to the conference, Facebook page of the culture network
• Going to the local church to talk to the local community
• Visit bars, shops, schools other institutions in the neighborhood
• The workshop participants are also be part of the exploration

How it was done

How

 

Photography

Željko photographed he message wall of Interzona as part of the documentation

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Interviews

Juana did interviews with at a café and at a bar using a standardized set of questions

 

Marijana got lost in Verona in the evening and was trying to find our way back to Interzona. She approached 3 people asking for directions – a bus driver, a lady waiting for a bus and a guy driving in the bus. None of them had ever heard about Interzona, but after mentioning Magazzini Generaly they immediately knew where to send her. Possible conclusion – connecting your identity to the history of the space where your center is situated can improve your visibility among the broader community.

 

Dylan made an interview with Davide, a cultural center manager from a theatre in Brescia

 

Burak made an interview Julia a board member from the WUK art center in Vienna, Austria

 

Karl Hallberg, Agata Will, and Christo de Klerk walked down via Molinara, a residential street near Interzona interviewing residents and business owners.

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Sound/Mapping/Experimental

Emelie and Susanna used a stick walking around the premises to make sounds to delineate the space

 

Susanna and Emelie also had cultural operators saying in their languages “Culture Center” and “Parking lot”

 

Results

Bordr Stories

As part of this activity, Bordr stories were booked.

View more stories posted with this activity

We got partly contrary results to what we had expected. Many had never heard about Interzona, and we discussed whether this was a valuable result or not given our entry into the Activity.

Also we sensed that our results (seen above) did not really do very much to address our why (also above), and we discussed the reasons for this below.

Our main result was increased learning about the platform and its potential usage…

 

How it went

Main lessons learned

• maybe we had a little over the top goals for the project…
• We had short time, we did not suceceed to our aims – but we did quite a bit anyway
• Language issues – we do not speak Italian
• Technology, internet did not work very well
• We did not get enough background information to support our activity
• We did not prepare enough, some more time would have been good

Suggestions for the future:

• Maybe we should have shared more thoughts beforehand

 

• An added why in this activity was to learn the tool of Europe Grand Central, and this was much more successful than the Interzona activity. We spent a good while discussing the potentiality of the site, and also specific design concerns to make it better. This gave a good precedence for future workshops.

Credits

Dylan Butler, Brunnenpassage, Austria
Norbert Tako, Ambasada, Romania
Agata Will, Workshops of Culture, Poland
Burak Sayin, TEH, Sweden
Juana Rooijakkers, Alte Feuerwache, Germany
Susanna Dagny Mohr, Kulturzentrum Schlachthof, Germany
Christo de Klerk, Not Quite, USA
Marijana Rimanić, Zagrebački centar za nezavisnu kulturu i mlade, Croatia
Zeljko Bašković, Zagrebački centar za nezavisnu kulturu i mlade, Croatia
Emelie Rygfelt Wilander, Not Quite, Sweden
Karl Hallberg, Not Quite, Sweden
Marcus Haraldsson, Not Quite, Sweden

Activity Timeline