If you can't find it, give us a ring - public works

Abstract

The publication deals with the collaborators interest in, art, architecture and collective practice; which is the basis of their socially engaged work within communities. The book focuses upon their process of making, shaping and ‘letting go’ of public spaces. The publication features an interview between Kathrin Böhm, artist and Andreas Lang, architect of Public Works, and Prof John Butler and Janet Hodgson from the University of Central England, Birmingham. It also includes an essay “Working with Uncertainty Towards a Real Public Space” by Doina Petrescu, School of Architecture, University of Sheffield. “If you can’t find it…” is one of three books commissioned by IXIA (the others feature Lucy Orta and Richard Woods) which address new thinking in public art. The text articulates (and the drawings make visible) the different spatial aspects involved in “Public Works” collaborative and participatory art/architecture practice. The focus of the publication is upon the project “Park Products” at the Serpentine, as a case study. The question was how to best document a dynamic, process-based social process, without relying upon textual narrative alone. The text and images included in the publication present the maps and drawings, which the group deployed for Park Products. This offers the reader a unique and primarily visual insight into the way Public Works go about planning, engaging communities and then realising a project within a public space.