Line of thoughts that keep us happy

A blackboard full of words that connect and relate, ingredients from our workshop last month in Italy. (Unidee Workshop)

Unmaking: subverting the Everyday 

Based on our year program back in the Netherlands.

A mind map of issues that we like to bring to every table……

Hosting the social

The critical outsider

Contemporary Archaeology

Reading the landscape

Flaneur

Seeing/ Observing

Mapping
Loosing ones Ego

On looking. Eleven city walks with ...

Take your time to watch Alexandra Horowitz talk about her series of eleven walks, mostly in her Manhattan neighborhood, with experts on a diverse range of subjects, including an urban sociologist, the well-known artist Maira Kalman, a geologist, a physician, and a sound designer.... Your daily walk in the city will never be the same.

Walking the city

The art of walking, of flanerie, of experiencing the real city, not the spectacle they want you to believe is the city, is the topic of this BBC show.

The Guardian series 'Story of Cities'

In one of the best webbased archives on the history of cities, the Guardian portraits cities all over the world. Strangely enough Budapest was not yet presented in the series, but perhaps 'Mission Possible' will change that. However, in one of the stories the urbanist battle between the 'power and privileged' and the regular people was described rather well. In the classic tale of Jane Jacobs vs Robert Moses we see all characteristics of bottom top city development vs top down citymaking passing the revue. A good read!

In a great piece on what would have been the 100ieth birthday of Jane Jacobs the great scholar and activist Saskia Sassen reflects on the legacy Jane Jacobs left behind. Saskia Sassen herself wrote a nightmarish fairytale for the Guardian on how London has been sold out to vampires, dragons and other imaginary monsters....

World without humans

In his pretty well known book 'The world without us' American writer Alan Weisman investigates how the world - including all of its' cities - would look like when humans, due to some mysterical disaster, have disappeared. His conclusion: within a few hundred years whatever remains of intelligent life would hardly remember us, humans.

Now, that can be a scary thought, but it also offers us a lot of freedom to rethink the way we have been organizing ourselves, and our cities until now. In a short movie Weisman explains how our house will deteriorate, see above.

Andrea Kovacs interviewed

Andrea Kovacs, curator for Trafo, and owner of her self established cultural agency Let it be art, talks about the upcoming program in an interview with the Trafo blog. Read the full interview here.

video of Jelle Reumer on 'urban ecology and the resilience of nature'

Jelle Reumer, Dutch scientist, former director of the Rotterdam Nature Museum, wrote two books on the evolution of man and animal in urban landscapes. On his own site he explains his interest as follows:

"Homo sapiens is the most successful animal species on our planet. Today more and more animals and plants are following us into our urban environment. Rubbish tips, subway passages, high-tech savannas, mountain chains of glass and concrete: they form a habitat just as suitable as pristine forest or new wilderness. How does this change of scene impact on conservationists, urban developers and architects? What does it mean for biologists? Is the white tiger or orphan seal more valuable than the scavenging seagull or suburban fox? "Wildlife in Rotterdam" is a small history of urban ecology and an ode to the resilience of nature. With infectious gusto Jelle Reumer speculates about urban nature in the future and signposts the astonishing evolutions taking place every day under our citified noses. Tomatoes sprouting from tramlines, swans building nests of plastic bottles, subway mosquitoes that never leave their underground lair: the city is a miraculous cradle of wildlife."

Jelle Reumer was a guest in Expodium's program in Utrecht, the Netherlands and was interviewed in front of an audience. See the footage:

Interviewed by Librarius.hu

In an interview with Budapest blog Librarius.hu one of the Expodium teammembers explains about Expodium's working methods, about thinkers who inspired Expodium, and about its' practises in the Netherlands.

Read the full interview at Librarius.