Staff and students attended the international professional development residency where they engaged with narratives of Community, Architecture, Participation and Migration (CAMP).
Date: 3 May 2022
Staff and research students from disciplines across the School of Art, Architecture and Design travelled to Athens during the Easter break for a week-long professional development residency. Led by Dr Bo Tang, Shamoon Patwari and Robert Barnes from the school's Architecture of Rapid Change and Scarce Resources (ARCSR) research group, participants engaged in activities exploring topics including place-based architecture, migration, community and participation in the neighbourhood of Exarcheia in central Athens.
Working closely with local Greek and refugee participants, the programme brought together staff and PhD/MA students from a broad and diverse range of disciplines, interests and experience, immersed themselves in the local culture. It offered a forum for exchange, sharing, learning and experimentation, with activities involving field research, talks from guest speakers, visits to local grassroots initiatives, and hands-on workshops.
This culminated in a public event called A Loose-Fit Collage of Fragments, where expressions and ideas were presented back to residents in the local neighbourhood as an exhibition of produced artefacts including drawings, models and film. Collected and assembled by the interdisciplinary team of participants from both London and Athens, the event was a celebration of local identity, migration, expression and architecture through encounters and exchanges with the host community.
This Erasmus+ funded programme was facilitated and hosted by local NGO, Inter Alia, and organised by Sirius Training. A second CAMP project will take place in Calabria in July 2022.
Image: Athens CAMP participants, April 2022 by Odel Jeffries.
