Chaumont-sur-Loire Garden Festival

At the end of this summer I submited a design for the 2011 Chaumont-sur-Loire Garden Festival, France. And I was one of the lucky few who got selected to build my garden. Assisting me with the tedious task is Aquarium Architecture, Stan (ex-colleague from the Netherlands) and Michael (a very reliable friend). This project has caused me already a few years of my life and many grey hairs, but it seems we are set to go now. My garden is named Le Jardin de Marees/Garden of the Tides and is inspired by the seas, for more information on the project itself check out my website: http://www.sarahfoque.com/landscape/landscapeproj17.html

I will keep you posted on the progress, now off to order some material in French (not my speciality!).

Art

Recently I have been re-reading or starting to read books I've read some time ago or have been intending to read for a while. It really gave a renewed perspective on my art-practice, a new focus, which I feel I had lost for a while. My work focuses on the ephemeral nature of the landscape and which role people play in this constantly changing landscape. I'm interested in how to represent this drifting landscape, how to grasp the ever-changing nature of environment, which we help to create. I want to understand and use it as a tool for my designs.Currently I am reading Rhythmanalysis: Space, time and Everyday Life, by Henri Lefebvre. He see our world as a collection of rhythms, each element has its own rhythms, which is constituted out of millions of rhythms themselve. The tree, which can be seen as a static element, suddenly becomes a living thing in motion. It moves but much slowerr than us. I just love these ideas. It makes you look at the world with completely new eyes.
I am starting to return to my thinking before I left Edinburgh, I don't know whether this is a good or a bad thing, but it definately gives me a renewed energy.

Markus Miessen Lecture

This evening I went to a Markus Miessen lecture at Stroom in The Hague. It was really interesting. Markus Miessen is the writer of did someone say participate and the violence of participation. During his lecture which was mostly based on the ideas of the last mentioned book, he showed us projects which he considered as failures. Believe me they weren't failures, each one of them was very inquisitive and very to the heart of things. It was very refreshing to see someone so succesful being really humble and constantly striving to learn and do better. An inspiration to us all I would say. He had such a good understanding of our world and how it works on societal and political level and how this relates to creation of space, but still had the naivity to believe in people. I think that this positive view towards humanity makes him create his projects. He really wants to make a difference, but he also has the patience to achieve it. All in all a very inspiring person!

Screen printing

A month and a half ago I did an introduction course into screen printing. Ever since I go every Friday faithfully to the workshop to make some more prints. The medium is perfect to capture the mystifying city with all its layers. The different print layers allow me to represent an aspect of city life. I recently started working on a serie, which I call Carte postale, of which 2 will be shown at the ProofDruk exhibition at de Haagse Kunstkring. Carte postale refers to an old post card collection book, which I bought years ago on a flee market. It is falling a part, but its title still has a golden shimmer: Carte Postale.
My prints are a bit like post cards. They show the cities I know, not in photographic sense. They attempt to clarify the scene shown, how it flows and functions, how things relate to one another. Each printing layer shows an aspect of city life in certain location in an abstracted version: Architectural relationships through abstracted geometric shapes, the reality through a photograph and movements through tape or sticky vinyl.

Carte Postale 1

Carte Postale 2

Time is the unknown denominator

Everyone screams we need to find a solution to the urban question. Well the answer is time. We should build things now with of course respect to the earth, people and the future, but we shouldn't be afraid to make mistakes. Not everything can be a masterpiece. (Also people seem to have a habit to learn more from their mistakes). The best things will stand the test of time and will become essential parts of our future cities. This does not mean city building should be a free for all. We should keep on being innovative and strive for perfection. But we should also face up that there is no such thing as perfection. So no matter how much research we do we will never reach a single answer. Time is the unknown denominator and will be the judge of our achievements.
I as a designer would love to crack the puzzle as well. It makes me humble and respectful towards this big thing we call the city. It will still stand strong even after we are gone and only time will tell if our plans were good enough to live on.

Young Swampy Formalism

Sarah Foqué (Leeds, UK), Eric Henzler (Stuttgart) , Erich Marty (Winterthur, CH) , Trine Pedersen (Kopenhagen, DK), Matthias Santiago Stähle (Hamburg) , Arne Schneider (Stuttgart)

Vernissage: Freitag, 30.10. 2009 , um 20 Uhr
Einführung: Gerhard Friebe
Ausstellungsdauer: 31.10.09 bis 22.11.09
Öffnungszeiten: Sa + So : 15- 19:00 und nach Vereinbarung (Tel.: 0711 / 6493968)
Ort: OP-Nord; Nordbahnhofstraße 45, 70191 Stuttgart , U-Bahn Linie 15, MilchhofDie Ausstellung Young Swampy Formalism bringt junge europäischer Künstler mit interschiedlichen Ansätzen in Malerei, Zeichnung und Videoarbeiten zusammen. Sie verbindet ein entscheidendes Merkmal: die Auseinandersetzung mit dem spannungsverhältnis zwischen Konzeptidee und Arbeitsprozess, verbunden mit einem klaren Hang zu subtilen Humor.

The exhibition brings together young European artists with different positions in painting, drawing and filming. They all got one key feature in common: they're all dealing with the two poles of conceptual ideas and working process, combined with a clear preference for an understatedsense of humour.

Project Zagreb

Since my move to the Netherlands and starting my new job. I spend about 1.5 hours on the train commuting. To me this equals to 1.5 hours of reading, sketching and writing time.
Recently I have been using this time to read 'Project Zagreb', a book by E. Blau and I. Rupnik. It deals with zagreb's urban history
One particular chapter of this book caught my attention, the section that deals with 'The Green Horseshoe'. The Green Horseshoe is a U-shaped network of green spaces and institutional buildings, which was the brain child of Milan Lenuci. Through architectural projects and programming he managed to maintain and create public space in the new urban expansion in the early 1900s. Milan Lenuci saved some areas from development by giving them a public program. For example: He created skating rinks on these spaces during winter and opened them up for sports and fairs during summer. By doing this he made the spaces part of public life and saved them from development. Milan Lenuci used public life to create public space.
According to me, my idea of rolling design (see earlier posts) is made up of a similar process of programming. In Rolling design though the process is used to re-link/re-engage people with an already existing public space. Rolling design is like the re-programming of a public space or the re-starting of a program in a public space. This type of programming allows people to re-claim the public realm for their public lives.