COLLASUS OFFICE FOR COLLABORATIVE SUSTAINABILITYis an interdisciplinary network interested in advancing the radical in everyday life. The office began as an Internet based platform to maintain collaboration amongst the founding members when overseas and across the country. The office is held together by the ubiquitous infrastructure of the Internet: skype calls, google docs, dropbox, blogging, wikipedia, and faithfully uncredited research. But it cannot deny the real muck that we exist in: compost, dirt, suburban developments, gentrified urban ghettos and dayjobs. COLLASUS seeks to develop the interactivity of these two worlds. The virtual allows for consistently new territories of exploration, while the muddy substrate allows for cultivation. We recognize architecture, installation, curation and research as the fruits of our labor, but only insofar as they provide the hyperlink to the next project. In this way, COLLASUS is websurfing, it is simultaneously structure and content. It is the way we find information and it informs what we look for.
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COLLASUSOFFICE FORCOLLABORATIVESUSTAINABILITYis an interdisciplinary network interested
in advancing the radical in everyday life. The office began as an Internet based platform to maintain collaboration amongst the founding members when overseas and across the country. The office is held together by the ubiquitous infrastructure of the Internet: skype calls, google docs, dropbox, blogging, wikipedia, and faithfully uncredited research. But it cannot deny the real muck that we exist in: compost, dirt, suburban developments, gentrified urban ghettos and dayjobs. COLLASUS seeks to develop the interactivity of these two worlds. The virtual allows for consistently new territories of exploration, while the muddy substrate allows for cultivation.
We recognize architecture, installation, curation and research as the fruits of our labor, but only insofar as they provide the hyperlink to the next project. In this way, COLLASUS is websurfing, it is simultaneously structure and content. It is the way we find information and it informs what we look for.
INTERVIEW W/ AN EMPIRE....p24
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TERRITORIAL REGIMES....p4
LIFEFORCE....p12
PLATFORM EDEN....p20
Exhibition and SeminarBerlin, Germany2010 - Ongoing
As part of an ongoing project that seeks to re-engage the abandoned Iraqi Embassy (Pankow-Berlin, Germany), the COLLASUS group has asked artists both international and local to produce site specific works for the abandoned building.
There were no guidelines, and no limit to participation. The group of participants are of varied backgrounds, ages, and artistic practices.
The project is seen as an opportunity to find an alternative use for the politically charged space through collectivity, art, and criticism. The work will remain anonymous in the former embassy.
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From pop-culture photo albums, to music videos and declassified government documents, a rich digital portrait was produced at the outset of our engagement with the building and distributed to participants. The COLLASUS website serves as a meeting point to discuss the document and propose new projects.
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RESEARCH DOCUMENT
1. Sample spreads from COLLASUS’ initial research document. 2. www.iraq-embassy.com: web presence for Territorial Regimes’ call for entries. 3. COLLASUS website: www.collasus.com.
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Removing overgrowth in the garden
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SELECTED WORKS
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Selection of works submitted and installed in the former Em-bassy: 1. Elizabeth Skadden, Soft Rains, Intervention. 2. Billy Rennekamp, Real Remnants of Fictive Sports 3. Matthew Austin, The Plant that Ate Berlin. 4. David Knowles, Neu-tral Political Space. 5. Legwork, Audio Installation.
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1. Part I of seminar held on site at the former Iraqi embassy 2-4. Part II of seminar held at PROGRAM Initiative for Art and Architecture, Berlin, www.programonline.de.
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In conjunction with installing work in the former embassy, COLLASUS hosted a discussion series through the Public School: Berlin, thepublicschool.org.
SEMINAR
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LIFEFORCETo expand upon our use of common materials in the pursuit of sustainability, COLLASUS created an environment with recycled goods capable of sustaining life in an urban context. We created a rainwater collection system, a distiller, compost bags, methane tanks, and modular planting organs. The project hoped to construct a space of desire, where new collective attitudes toward the built environment can take form.
Death of a Motorinist, stills from performance, Rome, Italy.
FOODGrowing vegetables, the soil is remediated with other decomposing organic matter
LIBIDOA short home video of machines
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ENERGYHeat and methane gas are generated by decomposing organic wastes
WATERWater is collected through the funnel and distilled
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Preliminary Installation Plan
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LIFEFORCE MACHINES:
Agricultural development at 184 Wilson Avenue, Brooklyn, NY.
Territorial Regimes research document continued.
Spatial Intervention, Rome, Italy.
1. Solar still, rainwater purifier 2. Planting bladders for hydroponic gardening 3. Biodigestor producing methane gas for cooking 4. Storage bags to preserve raw materials 5. Rainwater collector 6. Compost for soil remediation
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Roman Rocket Launcher, performance and installation, Rome, Italy.
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Building methane collectors with chicken waste from local live poultry market.
Death of a Motorinist, still from performance, Rome, Italy.
Lifeforce, modular planting organ.
View of former Iraqi Embassy, Berlin, Germany.
Assembling Rain Collection System for 184 Wilson Ave.
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The garden is a platform for a number of outreach and soil building efforts that invite and engage ecological participation. COLLASUS’ agricultural work is centered around (but not limited to) a series of inter-connected backyards and abandoned lots in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn. The aim is to re-purpose this expanse of underutilized land into an agricultural commons.
PLATFORM EDENFarming in the city is an uphill battle, but a battle that can be won by taking cues from our fiercest competitor. We mimic invasive species. As non-native Brooklynites we invade neglected land filling an ecological and ethical void working to smother the concrete fabric of the city. We are writing petitions, applying for grants, collecting waste for compost, promoting biodiversity, engaging neighbors and working to plant healthier anthropogenic landscapes.
Rainwater Cistern
Compost Station
Theatre
Raised Planting Beds
Children’s Zone
STOCKHOLM STREET
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Territorial Regimes research document continued.
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143 Stockholm St., a vacant lot owned by NYPD, was the inspiration to petition the neighborhood to create an interactive green space. The project aims were to provide youth with a connection to the earth and exposure to small scale food production. The lot has been vacant for over 15 years accumulating garbage; nevertheless, the NYPD claims that they have future plans for a parking lot on the site. COLLASUS will begin planting a field of sunflowers (to extract lead) in the spring of 2011 to begin creative use of the land.
1. Phase I proposal: a sunflower field to extract heavy metals. 2. Petition to NYPD for use 143 Stockholm 3. Location of 143 Stockholm and adjoining backyard gardens (184 Wilson) 4. Phase II proposal: active community and agriculture generator.
184 Wilson Ave. is growing soil, food, and pollinators while catching rainwater and connecting neighbors in three adjoining backyards that were previously neglected. Each season, the gardens convert 1500 lbs. of waste from the surrounding neighborhood into compost for its raised beds. The intention is to transform this industrial area of Brooklyn into a fertile ecotone. While the past two seasons have produced abundant food donations to the community, 2011 will mark the first year of selling produce to cover seed and infrastructure costs.
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1.184 Wilson garden aerial view. 2. Compost Demonstration 3. Garden collaborators. 4. Garden view, August 2010.
From Territorial Regimes: Mariette Auvray’s video projects help us consider territoriality anew. The notion of tactile geography that Mariette explores in the ‘Vegetable Map’ sequence provides a new means of conceptualizing one’s relationship to territory. These are two excerpts from a documentary Mariette made last year “Le lac des brumes”, about the relationships within the members of a Vietnamese family in France. She got to work with the father in several sequences. Manh H. was a philosophy teacher in Berlin during the 80s, he is now working as a cook in France.
1. Compost Painting process 2. Making Iguana roe soup, 4th Avenue Agriculture, Miami FL.
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Interview with an Empire, stills from performance, Rome, Italy.
Compost Painting is a soil remediation earthwork that strives for a net environmental benefit through its educational and renewable painting process. Inspired by community-scale composting projects in Brooklyn, the Compost Painting project scavenges an abundance of urban art and garden materials, and combines them on canvas with carefully sourced waste organics. Compost Painting was exhibited at the Invisible Dog Art Center in participation with the Farm City Fair.
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Interview with an Empire
This series of performances and installations engaged public space in Rome to critique Italy’s mediatic culture. The performances took the form of a mythical drama in order to explore and re-appropriate the classical paradigms of Italy’s aesthetic history that continue to influence the discourse of the media. In this sense, the project was an effort to develop a minor art capable of resisting the hegemony of the spectacle.
Aerial View of 184 Wilson, Brooklyn, NY 2008
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Stills from Death of a Motorinist.
We constructed a shallow basin in the courtyard of Pallazetto Cenci that served as the site for a performance that investigated Italy’s military history. This creative analysis hoped to provide a space for the foundation of new sociopolitical models outside of dominant statist discourse.
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Assyrian Room at former Iraqi embassy, Berlin, Germany.
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Lifeforce, detail of modular planting organ.
Beehives at 184 Wilson Ave., Brooklyn, NY.
1. Interview with an Empire, stills from performance. 2. Interview with an Empire, view of installation. 3. Preliminary drawings for installation.
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Details from research document for Territorial Regimes, Berlin, Germany.
Interview with an Empire, still from performance, aerial view.34
