DISplay Z33
The setting is Hasselt’s beguinage. This triangular walled garden in the city is a unique oasis, in stark contrast to bustling Hasselt. Although the beguinage has long been a well-kept public secret, it need not remain so. This non-commercial meeting place could develop into a subtle means of communication and an orientation point for Hasselt’s inhabitants.
This is why Constructlab proposed “DISplay”. In collaboration with the House for Contemporary Art Z33, it forms a hybrid communication platform, where social and cultural relations are strengthened. During the summer of 2019, We’ll Find Ways used the beguinage as its headquarters: a starting point for various expeditions and processions. A crossroads of countless roads and paths. A starting point, not an end station. Even if these paths cross only temporarily, the encounters in the garden always carry a promise.
Bert Villa
Gion Von Albertini
Lines are everywhere. The same applies to a city. They make connections, build bridges between two points, show traces of actions, or depict invisible relationships. They connect the built reality of the city with the invisible forces that form its foundation. Both timelines and diagrams use lines to make information comprehensible. In reality, countless lines traverse our environment: streets, rivers, alleys, borders… They are signs of life, traces of activity. Not always visible or obvious. Markers, signposts, signposts and beacons help us navigate, while highlighting hidden lines.
With We’ll Find Ways, we use this concept of signs and markings to make visible and ultimately strengthen the underlying relationships and activities in Hasselt. We map the lines that cross our path, and the connections we ourselves can evoke.
ConstructLab
ConstructLab
Leonard Contramestre
The advertising column
Advertising columns, billboards, hot air balloons, neon lights… They proclaim their message in public spaces. In 1854, German printer Ernst Litfass designed the advertising column to centralise the chaotic dissemination of information in Berlin. Through these columns, and their counterpart the billboard, the city could express itself in text and image, telling a visual story of its myriad activities.
Playing with typography, graphics and colour created a form of street art that aesthetically expressed the city’s culture. They formed a blueprint of what lived in the city, the cultural indicators that defined a city’s identity. At the time, advertising columns were democratic, promoting civic participation. Nowadays, they are mainly used for commercial purposes, such as real estate ads. As a result, visible communication of city activities has declined, and flyers and social media have emerged as bland alternatives.
ConstructLab
Hasselt has many socio-cultural initiatives. Whether they operate within their own network, in the public space, or with limited visibility, they all work together and coexist. With this project, we want to activate the city from within. We’ll Find Ways aims to create a dynamic in which everyone gets the chance to give their proposal the authentic attention it deserves.
We proposed active communication in the beguinage. A column will be built to display and share information on it. From posting to using it for events, visitors to the garden will actively interact with the construction. Thus, an announcement may lead to a collective action or a spontaneous experiment. This spontaneity and unpredictability make a visit to the garden both an event and a non-event, where the visitor does not know which link of the action chain he or she is entering. The atmosphere of a visit will not always be predictable or anticipated. Through this playful nature, the column creates a reason to return more often, and at the same time an incentive to explore the activities and events presented there.
The structure aims to be open to experimentation and impulsivity. Anyone can go there with their own interpretation, allowing the column to transform into a kiosk, a DJ booth, a stage, a house, a surprise. We’ll Find Ways constitutes a flirtation between advertising and actual content.
ConstructLab
Michiel De Cleene