Renewed relations/Interactive publication/2019

A city is a compound architectural structure a building in space that exists within a broader context and is perceived over long periods of time. Its design is shaped temporarily by the aesthetics, politics, and priorities of a particular era. In today’s public sphere, however, this order is frequently disrupted, interrupted, and re-appropriated across overlapping timeframes.

At any given moment, there is more in public space than meets the eye or reaches the ear. Whether by accident or intention, traces, encounters, and latent narratives wait to be uncovered. While individuals may not consciously connect these layers, they remain attached to their surroundings through accumulated experiences and the succession of events that have shaped them.

This project takes the form of an interactive publication that prompts participants to observe their surroundings, follow specific instructions, and share photographs from public spaces. Through these collective contributions, the work gathers multiple viewpoints and lived experiences, building a distributed archive that reflects how urban environments are continuously rewritten by those who pass through them.

People’s relationships to public spaces are determined by two forces that unequally influence change. These forces rarely align in time: squares and monuments assert their permanence through political shifts, while citizens undergo social transformation—continually renegotiating how these spaces are inhabited, remembered, and reimagined.