ONGEKEND.ZEEDIJK
Gemeente Amsterdam, 2022
Site: Zeedijk, Amsterdam
Full project: Open Research - ONGEKEND.ZEEDIJK
ONGEKEND.ZEEDIJK is an art, oral history, and co-creation project that explores how municipalities can engage more meaningfully with local communities in the context of urban change.
The Zeedijk, part of Amsterdam's historic city centre, is one of the city's oldest streets: a palimpsest of histories, stories and functions. Its identity is under constant threat from the powerful (economic) forces shaping contemporary cities, yet a variety of strong and active communities remain present. It is a complex urban environment that requires tools capable of engaging with the multiple stories and perspectives that coexist within it.
Working with artists and employing the city as a space of collective intelligence, the project used conversations and oral history as research and methodological tools. Through deep and radical listening, more than one hundred conversations were held with residents, entrepreneurs, creatives and institutions, exploring the past, present and future of the Zeedijk, which were then translated into artworks by the artists. Topics included bodily experience, socio-spatial fragmentation, ownership, participation and belonging.
The project investigates cooperation as a basic human need and as a modus operandi for empowering communities, neighbourhoods and groups of inhabitants. It presents conversations and oral history as a means to reposition design and designers as mediators between the municipality and the experts the city is full of: inhabitants, entrepreneurs, creatives and institutions.
The outcome takes the form of a public-space exhibition, a publication, and a co-creation methodology. Developed as a pilot project for the City of Amsterdam, the method is now part of the municipality's toolbox.
This project is created in collaboration with Jelmer Peter, Niel Oedit Doebé, Susan Kooi, Neil Fortune and Tja Ling Hu, amongst many others.