Master Plan for Duamdong
Artistic Research project
Exhibition: Gwangju Biennial 2016
Curator: Maria Lind
Technical data: Video – film 20:44 min, HDV-projection; Duamdong table game (table with benches 2.00 × 2.00 m, birch multiplex, table top printed with the Duamdong site plan, game instructions, plexi-glass box with flags and plexi-glass buttons with symbols of street elements); info display; programme of special events.
Action research project with several parts:
- Learning from Duamdong: several workshops with residents from Duamdong.
- Project Proposal: a video film and a table game.
- Public Presentations: between artists, residents, politicians and city officials.
- Public Lectures and Discussions on gentrification, eco-community and self-organisation.
A master plan in the context of city planning is a land use and infrastructure plan that sets forth local goals, objectives and policies for community growth and/or redevelopment over the next 20–30 years. Duamdong was the only neighbourhood in Gwangju that had no publicly known plan for the future. We wondered why and started to investigate the case. The project's active part started in spring 2016 and ran until September 2016 in cooperation with the Nuribom Community Centre in Duamdong.
The aim was to create a discursive platform for local inhabitants to raise awareness about the place as it is today and to work on issues related to the neighbourhood in the near and possible future. The Master Plan for Duamdong was to demonstrate an alternative to the conventional urban development plan, which usually imposes the future of a place under the premise of producing economic benefits rather than social relations.
Master Plan for Duamdong worked on ideas for sustainability and resilience that originate in the context of the site itself. One could imagine a very particular development in the Duamdong neighbourhood related to the knowledge already situated in the area. The alternative we presented to the public (city officials and biennale public) was a suggestion, not a solution, and possibly a method.
The project created a platform for exchange between people and the place, between the residents, city officials and the biennial public, to question the idea of progress and development under the conditions of present economic realities. We organised several workshops, actions and events, inviting people from the neighbourhood, from elsewhere, and city officials to meet, talk and listen to each other.
Duamdong table game
The modifications proposed by Duamdong inhabitants are represented by simple elements used in the game: garbage collection points, paper collection points, parking lots, street greenery, streetlights, roof gardens and benches. The game should be played in cooperation with the locals who know the place well: talk to a local person about the place, choose an urban element, place it on the map where you want it to be, and write or draw your ideas on a piece of A4 paper. The ideas are collected, documented and revised by Duamdong residents, and might influence the development of the place in the future.
Public events
- Sat 27 August 2016, 16:00–18:00: Presentation of the Master Plan for Duamdong by Apolonija Šušteršič with Dari Bae; 18:00–21:00 Street Party
- Sat 3 September 2016: Public Lecture Series 1, Hands on Urbanism, by Elke Krasny
- Fri 9 September 2016: Public Lecture Series 2, Urban Commoning, by Myung Rae Cho
- Sat 17 September 2016: Public Lecture Series 3, Discussion on Gentrification, by Blaž Križnik, Alban Mannisi and Taehee Lee