| Summary: | Departing from an interest in understanding the life of materials, recognizing that in order to question the current reality of a society of consumption we need to reconnect to places extending beyond the one of use, the project asks the following questions: What happens to things, to buildings, after we have finished using them? What does neglect and decay do to the self-image of a place? And to the people inhabiting it? How can the extraction and re-use of building materials be meaningful? The project is situated in the peripheral community of Jörn. Located along the northern railroad mainline Jörn is tightly connected to the history of the industrialization of northern Sweden. As the railroad was rolled out it brought with it power relations between center and periphery, places of use and of extraction, that still live on, power relations that are evident in a place like Jörn. Jörn is not really a village, neither is it a city, but something in between. The word in Swedish is centralort, a town aspiring to be the city, a place that used to hold ideas about the future. A place that has been left behind as work has been rationalized and attention turned entirely towards the big cities along the coast. The project starts with an imagined invitation to artists, builders, and architects. Materials will be mined from unused buildings in the immediate context as well as from other places along the railroad, with the old railroad hotel working as a platform or bank of materials both exploring the potential uses for repurposed building materials and the histories attached to them. The project proposes a methodology where making is seen as a tool for discussion, an action to gather around and share. Makers that take part in the project will be accommodated in the renovated hotel that also provides spaces for the local community, enabling the exchange of stories, knowledge of the place and its materials. In a time where knowledge can no longer be produced within disciplinary boundaries, this testbed is designed with ...
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