Communication and Mediation, Part II — SPATIAL IDENTITY: Lectures by Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad (United Kingdom), Wilfried Kuehn (Germany), and Laura Miotto (Italy/Singapore)

Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad’s practice spans from neighbourhood plans and public spaces to recipes, games and objects. His approach to design draws on play theories and strategies of defamiliarisation as contextual research tools that actively engage different publics in design processes.

His presentation will focus on Hello Stranger (2016), a critical game designed with and for staff members at the Victoria & Albert’s Museum of Childhood, London, United Kingdom. Estrangement devices were created to induce “question-making” as a tool to recalibrate the overfamiliar and sense the museum anew in order to critically reflect upon the experiences it offers and the qualities it values.

In this lecture, Wilfried Kuehn will address the concept of “Curatorial Design”, an expression coined by the Kuehn himself. He will explore the role of space and architecture in artistic and curatorial practices through several case studies of exhibition displays and institutional projects he developed, including the exhibition design for Documenta11.

Laura Miotto will address site-specific spatial narratives focusing on her work for the Malay Heritage Centre in Singapore. Located in the historical precinct of Kampong Glam and re-opened to the public in 2012, the Centre undergone three years of interpretative planning that repositioned the institution in the cultural ecosystem of Singapore. Miotto will unpack site-specific strategies to regenerate connections with the many identities associated to this significant place, looking at the intersection between architecture, site, and narratives.