Talking Heads with Assemble: collective in the fields of art, architecture and design
Wednesday 30 November 2016
auditoire, HEAD - Genève
Bd. James-Fazy 15
à 19h
Assemble are a collective based in London who work across the fields of art, architecture and design. They began working together in 2010 and are comprised of 18 members. Assemble’s working practice seeks to address the typical disconnection between the public and the process by which places are made. Assemble champion a working practice that is interdependent and collaborative, seeking to actively involve the public as both participant and collaborator in the on-going realisation of the work.
Assemble was founded in 2010, when the recent graduates built a temporary cinema in an abandoned petrol station in London's Clerkenwell (Cineroleum). The team cemented their reputation a year later with another temporary screening space, this time beside a canal under a motorway flyover (Folly for a Flyover). They are currently working on a new gallery for London art college Goldsmiths.
In 2015, Assemble has become the first architecture or design studio to receive the prestigious Turner Prize for art. As well as being the first "non-artists" to receive the Turner Prize, this is first time a "collective" has won in its 31-year history.
Assemble won the UK's most important art award for its work on the Granby Four Streets project in Liverpool. The project is a collaboration with the residents of a rundown council housing estate to clean up the neighbourhood, paint empty houses and establish a local market. Granby Four Streets involves the renovation of 10 houses and a series of empty shops, planting and creating social outdoor spaces, and offering building jobs and training to local people. Also as part of the project, Assemble created a workshop selling homeware made in collaboration with local artists and craftspeople.
Will be present at HEAD:
Anthony Engi Meacock (1987) studied architecture at Cambridge University and the Royal College of Arts in London. He is a founding member of Assemble. He teaches at Westminster University and he was guest professor at HEAD during spring 2016.
Maria Lisogorskaya (1987) is a founding director of Assemble where she has a proven track record of delivering innovative interventions, working from strategy, material prototyping through to construction delivery. She has led on research into and policy development of workspace in London, establishing a publicly accessible workshop and fabrication facility. She is currently developing housing models in the UK and abroad, which place importance on affordability, ‘making’ and community. Maria is also a Visiting Lecturer at Central Saint Martins, where she runs an MA design studio focussed on the relationship between housing and enterprise in Thamesmead.
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