Urban fishing
(2018)
author(s): Anna Kholina
published in: Research Catalogue
This exhibition displays five projects inspired by the Kokemäenjoki river in Pori and the phenomena of urban fishing. They were created during the “Situated Urban” course at Aalto ARTS, while actively exploring the river and reflecting about the stories around it. Each project looks at the river and fishing from different angles, merging physical, personal and social dimensions via artistic approaches.
Artists:
Anastasia Artemeva
Anna Kholina
Charli Clark
Petra Martinez
Jaakko Leeve
Martin Binder
Curators:
Taina Rajanti
Annette Maechtel
Maps, space and body: connecting mental representations of space to the production of space
(2019)
author(s): Anna Kholina
published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
This exposition investigates the relationship between maps, space and body. It looks at mental maps — images of the environment that we hold in our memory. It argues that a map we store in our minds is not merely a functional device for navigation, but a system of signs, values and meanings that allow us to re-imagine the space, appropriate it and develop new social practices.
The study places mental images inside Lefebvre's triad of social space (Lefebvre, 1991). It suggests that mental images are a manifestation of the third component of the triad, the lived space, which includes alternative imaginations, symbolic values and appropriations of space. The exposition explores this claim via a dataset of 37 mental maps created by Masters-level students at Aalto University in Finland in November 2018. By qualitatively analysing the contents and the morphology of the hand-drawn maps, it traces how the lived space is both passively perceived and actively re-imagined.
The main contribution of the exposition is bringing the imagined space to the attention of urban planning professionals. It suggests that the distorted, inconsistent and idiosyncratic mental images are more than a reduced schema of a physical environment. They support alternative re-imagining and catalyse the process of creative appropriation, enabling bottom-up urban transformation.
