Instant Favelas is a transdisciplinary project by Colectivo Macrame. It simulates a nomadic city made of street-found cardboard and stages it in the urban landscape of Zurich. The direct inspiration is the favela: an informal settlement that grows chaotically around a metropolis, built by its inhabitants from residual material, adapted to the topography and to what they need and can afford.
The city grows over several days and is built with freehand collaborators. Cardboard collected around Zurich, waste that speaks about local consumption, is made into walls that work like bricks. Three wall sizes arranged by a pattern let the settlement grow to fit the site and the number of people building it. Once built, the city is inhabited through interventions by invited artists and designers, and the process stays open to the public.
The work was shown as Karton Fever, work in progress, 16–27 April 2012, Vor Bühne B, Gessnerallee, Zürich.
Claudia Baena, Instant Favelas
Team
Colectivo Macrame:
- Eloisa Avila, industrial design, scenography
- Claudia Baena, fine arts, photography
- Andrés Villa Torres, industrial and interaction design
- Paulina Velasco, graphic and editorial design
- Hans Leidescher, architecture
- Natalie Oren, architecture
Interventions
- The exchange, Silvio Faieta, artist
- Playground noises, Andrés Villa Torres, interaction designer
- The musicians, Thomas Ospelt, artist
- Favelas no paraíso, Sampaio do Nascimento Lopes, war reporter, Cidade de Deus, Rio de Janeiro
- Mico Rex, Enrique Romero and Jorge Ramírez, sound artists, Mexico City, live coding
- No Title, Sarah Rutschmann, graphic designer
Materials
Cardboard, pallets, tables with matrices, cutters, adhesive tape, glue. A low-tech factory in a garage.
Partners
Mentor: Dominik Lämmli. Award: Agentur Z+, ZHdK, 2011. Support: Agentur Z+ ZHdK, Department Fine Arts ZHdK, Department Theater ZHdK, STARKART / Gessnerallee / Kunsthof.
Publications
- Zett, Magazin der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, 2012. Kunst & Medien, page 28.
- Mind The Gap, Kunsthof Zürich, Materialien und Dokumente 1993–2013. Institut für Gegenwarts-Kunst, ZHdK, page 1101.
- Theater der Künste, ZHdK, 2012
- Mehr als nur Pappe, Dominik Wolfinger, 2012
Thanks
All the interventors. Saghi Gholipour, Niels Walter, Whitney Sparks and Wolf Schmerzl for the text and translation. The ZHdK Hausdienst, Richard Müller and Christoph Schenker for technical support. Erich Fässler for ideas on the construction. Sarah Rutschmann for help with the graphics. Everyone who joined the building and the documentation.
Images and project text from claudiabaena.ch.
