THE GRAND
DOMESTIC REVOLUTION

THE GRAND
DOMESTIC REVOLUTION

USER'S MANUAL

USER'S MANUAL

‘The Grand Domestic Revolution—User’s Manual’ (GDR) investigates the domestic space and its (changing) use through a variety of methods and disciplines, traversing the fields of art, design, architecture, urban planning, activism and theory. A number of artists and other practitioners contribute to this endeavour. Residents from 2009-2011 include Sepake Angiama, Paul Elliman, and Doris Denekamp who utilized neighbourhood and online research to create prototypes and interventions around the theme of (Green) Cooperativsm. Wietske Maas and Travis Meinolf experimented with Home Production; while 'interor' infrastuctural interventions for the furniture, library and hallways were created by ifau & Jesko Fezer, Mirjam Thomann and Graziela Kunsch. Current themes and residents from February–October 2011 include Kyohei Sakaguchi and Kateřina Šedá who will each investigate forms of usership in architectures; home and housing rights with Maria Pask and Nazima Kadir; the question of invisible and domestic labour taken up by Werker Magazine; Agency will continue its deliberations on copyright issues of domestic THINGS (gardens and textiles); and keywords in relations to food service work will be workshopped with Xu Tan. Parallel to this, the Read-in activity continues. Initiated by artist Annette Krauss and theatre maker, Read-in is an open reading group inhabiting a different neighbour’s home for every session.

LIBRARY

LIBRARY

The GDR library constitutes the backbone of our ongoing ‘living research’ and thus grows over time. The library offers points of engagement with the project and consists of different research materials such as books, articles, images and DVDs (artist’s video, films) that are available for viewing when visiting the apartment. The first installment was done by the GDR team and was later adapted by Sao Paulo-based artist Graziela Kunsch who suggested that the GDR team create thematic selections.

APARTMENT 18B

APARTMENT 18B

'The Grand Domestic Revolution-User's Manual' is a long-term project developed as Casco’s contribution to 'Utrecht Manifest: Biennial for Social Design'. The project deals with the evolutionary and collaborative process of “living” research in the contemporary domestic and private sphere – particularly in relation to the spatial imagining (or the built environment). It aims at re-articulating while exercising the notions of the social, the public and, eventually, the commons.

TOWN MEETINGS

TOWN MEETINGS has its genealogy in past regular GDR events from 2009–2010. These include Home Cinema, where the screening of films that touch upon different aspects of domesticity, neighbourhood organisation, urban planning and alternative politics, take place; Thursday Night Supper, occasions for cooking, eating and discussion with various guests, and the midterm manifestation GDR GOES ON which consisted of a series of events over four days in domestic, private, and public spaces in Utrecht.

IN AFFINITY

IN AFFINITY

Since August 2010, the GDR team have undertaken research in order to connect with the local neighbourhood on questions relating to peoples’ social conditions and material environments. Questionnaires, interviews, and conversations are the methods used to explore the themes and problems addressed in GDR, such as self-organised governance, co-operative living, and spatial organisation in and from the domestic sphere.

SEARCH

BALCONY OPENINGS

29 January 2011 14.00–17.00h
With projects by Paul Elliman , Doris Denekamp and others

Discussion with artists and designers of GDR balcony projects


GDR presented the first TOWN MEETING, ‘Balcony Openings’, inaugurating two recent growths off of the GDR apartment space.

The last months of 2010 saw the quiet and gradual production of new interior/exterior extensions to GDR that intervene in the apartment’s ‘look-out’ points:

  • We were here, by London-based artist and researcher, Paul Elliman (in collaboration with Amsterdam-based graphic designer Na Kim, artist and gardener Hans van Lunteren and ecologist and gardener Rob van de Steen), is an installation of public information panels mapping visible plant matter from the front and back balcony views,


  • MEAL MACHINE, by Rotterdam-based artist and current Dutch Art Institute student Doris Denekamp (in collaboration with artist/architect, Arend Groosman) is a greenhouse device constructed from open source techniques which will produce menus and coordinate new social rituals around its cycles.


These extensions expand space and site, challenge and reify interior/exterior and open up material and imaginative possibilities for further actions and contemplation of the domestic sphere. The manifestations will be inaugurated on 29 January 2011. We welcomed all to join us and the artists for light afternoon refreshments to toast this occasion.

NEXT MONTH’s TOWN MEETING

26 FEBRUARY
'What is still interesting about housework?'


To receive more information about this and future TOWN MEETINGs, please email us at gdr@cascoprojects.org.

Related:

NOTES

GDR Diary 3: The moestuin is alive

Dear Sepake,

I think that you will be glad to know that the GDR moestuin keeps being regularly visited. Yesterday’s visitors took fresh radishes home and, in exchange, shared important (albeit basic, I was told) gardening knowledge — in warm days, plants should only be watered in the evening. They also suggested that the remaining radishes should be moved into bigger pots, so that their soil will keep moist during the next hot Summer days. Would that be fine for you? Apart from that, the plants seem to be happy to be a part of the GDR, as you can see here.

23 May 2010, 23.04 — posted by Mafalda

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