Sara Brolund de Carvalho is an artist, filmmaker, architect and educator based in Stockholm. She started 2013 together with researchers Helena Mattsson and Meike Schalk the research group Action Archive, that now also includes Maryam Fanni, Jennifer Mack, Svava Riesto and Heidi Sveningsen Kajita. Their methods are based on collaborative formats, such as participatory action research, and simultaneously, these formats are also part of the dissemination of the research. They have developed participatory historical records through public actions that bring together diverse actors and a public around urban cultural, historical, and political issues by employing experimental research formats such as witness seminars, walks, films, re-enactments, collective time-space mappings and Forum Theater.
Narratives about the 'failure' of large-scale post-World War II housing are now guiding major phy... more Narratives about the 'failure' of large-scale post-World War II housing are now guiding major physical, social, and economic changes in neighborhoods all over Europe. This is true even in Denmark and Sweden, which have long been known for their welfare states and benevolent housing policies. Today, however, both countries have enacted new national anti-segregation measures that call for major physical and social changes to neighborhoods built in the postwar era, even as the opinions of local communities and residents of such neighborhoods have been only sparsely heard-if at all. By working with the method 'witness seminars', we-as the research collective Aktion Arkivforeground residents' perspectives and their collective resistance: the effects and affects of top-down changes. While sharing their lived experiences and actions, residents say that architects and planners can 'simply say no' and thereby refuse to participate in these actions.
Changing Welfare Workshop: Nordic Models of Architecture and Welfare, University of Copenhagen, Landscape Architecture and Planning, 9-10 April 2019, 2019
The legendary Swedish welfare state model comprised, on its smallest scale, an infrastructure of ... more The legendary Swedish welfare state model comprised, on its smallest scale, an infrastructure of ‘common rooms’ (gemensamhetslokaler). Here, we explore common rooms as a spatio-social concept inspired by ‘the commons’. We argue that common rooms were fundamental to the Swedish welfare state model until the 1990s, and that the divorce of the spatial dimension from the social apparatus contributed to its decline. Using recent common rooms (Gemeinschaftsräume) in subsidized housing in Vienna as our empirical example, we illustrate how collectivity is influenced by changing legal frameworks, with common rooms receiving new attention in recent sustainable housing policies. On the micro level, we explore how these have led to paranoid constructions, but also to reparative acts and rituals of care for common rooms and their communities. What can we learn from this, and what larger structures of care can we develop for
In summer 2017, we followed an invitation by Angelika Fitz and Elke Krasny to take part in the pu... more In summer 2017, we followed an invitation by Angelika Fitz and Elke Krasny to take part in the public workspace of their project Care+Repair in the Nordbahnhalle; a project connected to the Vienna ...
This publication is dedicated to the study of common rooms (Gemeinschaftsraume) in recent example... more This publication is dedicated to the study of common rooms (Gemeinschaftsraume) in recent examples of subsidized housing in the Nordbahnviertel (the Northern Railway District) in Vienna, against a ...
En av huvudmålen med arbetet var att få ökad förståelse för hur medborgarnas makt och inflytande ... more En av huvudmålen med arbetet var att få ökad förståelse för hur medborgarnas makt och inflytande utvecklats historiskt inom stadsplanering. Jag var även intresserad av arkitektens roll i denna process. Jag ville som arkitekt, med stadsplanering som huvudfokus, hitta intressanta vägar att arbeta med medborgare och medborgargrupper och att förstå hur ett reellt lokalt inflytande kan ta form. Därför har jag försökt titta på relationer mellan medborgare, arkitekter, planerare, organisationer och kommun/stat. Jag drevs av en övertygelse att jag lättare kommer att finna argument för mina ”sociala ambitioner” som arkitekt om jag förstår de historiska processerna bakom medborgardeltagandet i både Sverige och ur ett internationellt perspektiv. Jag har undersökt olika historiska och nutida exempel från Sverige, Storbritannien och USA och försökt förstå vad och hur olika idéer hänger samman över tid och mellan länder. Anledningen till att jag valde Storbritannien och USA är att de har producer...
En av huvudmalen med arbetet var att fa okad forstaelse for hur medborgarnas makt och inflytande ... more En av huvudmalen med arbetet var att fa okad forstaelse for hur medborgarnas makt och inflytande utvecklats historiskt inom stadsplanering. Jag var aven intresserad av arkitektens roll i denna proc ...
Narratives about the 'failure' of large-scale post-World War II housing are now guiding major phy... more Narratives about the 'failure' of large-scale post-World War II housing are now guiding major physical, social, and economic changes in neighborhoods all over Europe. This is true even in Denmark and Sweden, which have long been known for their welfare states and benevolent housing policies. Today, however, both countries have enacted new national anti-segregation measures that call for major physical and social changes to neighborhoods built in the postwar era, even as the opinions of local communities and residents of such neighborhoods have been only sparsely heard-if at all. By working with the method 'witness seminars', we-as the research collective Aktion Arkivforeground residents' perspectives and their collective resistance: the effects and affects of top-down changes. While sharing their lived experiences and actions, residents say that architects and planners can 'simply say no' and thereby refuse to participate in these actions.
Changing Welfare Workshop: Nordic Models of Architecture and Welfare, University of Copenhagen, Landscape Architecture and Planning, 9-10 April 2019, 2019
The legendary Swedish welfare state model comprised, on its smallest scale, an infrastructure of ... more The legendary Swedish welfare state model comprised, on its smallest scale, an infrastructure of ‘common rooms’ (gemensamhetslokaler). Here, we explore common rooms as a spatio-social concept inspired by ‘the commons’. We argue that common rooms were fundamental to the Swedish welfare state model until the 1990s, and that the divorce of the spatial dimension from the social apparatus contributed to its decline. Using recent common rooms (Gemeinschaftsräume) in subsidized housing in Vienna as our empirical example, we illustrate how collectivity is influenced by changing legal frameworks, with common rooms receiving new attention in recent sustainable housing policies. On the micro level, we explore how these have led to paranoid constructions, but also to reparative acts and rituals of care for common rooms and their communities. What can we learn from this, and what larger structures of care can we develop for
In summer 2017, we followed an invitation by Angelika Fitz and Elke Krasny to take part in the pu... more In summer 2017, we followed an invitation by Angelika Fitz and Elke Krasny to take part in the public workspace of their project Care+Repair in the Nordbahnhalle; a project connected to the Vienna ...
This publication is dedicated to the study of common rooms (Gemeinschaftsraume) in recent example... more This publication is dedicated to the study of common rooms (Gemeinschaftsraume) in recent examples of subsidized housing in the Nordbahnviertel (the Northern Railway District) in Vienna, against a ...
En av huvudmålen med arbetet var att få ökad förståelse för hur medborgarnas makt och inflytande ... more En av huvudmålen med arbetet var att få ökad förståelse för hur medborgarnas makt och inflytande utvecklats historiskt inom stadsplanering. Jag var även intresserad av arkitektens roll i denna process. Jag ville som arkitekt, med stadsplanering som huvudfokus, hitta intressanta vägar att arbeta med medborgare och medborgargrupper och att förstå hur ett reellt lokalt inflytande kan ta form. Därför har jag försökt titta på relationer mellan medborgare, arkitekter, planerare, organisationer och kommun/stat. Jag drevs av en övertygelse att jag lättare kommer att finna argument för mina ”sociala ambitioner” som arkitekt om jag förstår de historiska processerna bakom medborgardeltagandet i både Sverige och ur ett internationellt perspektiv. Jag har undersökt olika historiska och nutida exempel från Sverige, Storbritannien och USA och försökt förstå vad och hur olika idéer hänger samman över tid och mellan länder. Anledningen till att jag valde Storbritannien och USA är att de har producer...
En av huvudmalen med arbetet var att fa okad forstaelse for hur medborgarnas makt och inflytande ... more En av huvudmalen med arbetet var att fa okad forstaelse for hur medborgarnas makt och inflytande utvecklats historiskt inom stadsplanering. Jag var aven intresserad av arkitektens roll i denna proc ...
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