Never-never School'19: Mapping the In-between

Interdisciplinary summer school | Košice, Slovakia | 28.8. – 6.9.2019

Find out more in this 25min short film about the summer school. Or keep scrolling through this page.

The bilingual publication Mapping the in-between: Interdisciplinary methods for envisioning other futures is the outcome of the international summer school that explored the potential of interdisciplinary mapping and utopian visioning as an alternative way of developing the city. During the school, various proposals were made as actual alternatives to those of the commodified real estate market and the dreams of large developments of filling in the ‘empty’ spaces of the many brownfields. The texts collected here were developed in Košice, Slovakia, with the help of Never-never school’s participants and are a unique insight into the new possible models of cooperation and collaboration.

You can buy a printed copy directly from our online shop or from one of these great book shops in Košice: Artforum Košice, in Budapest in ISBN store, or in Prague: Page Five, ArtMap, CAMP and in VI PER Gallery.

In the current urban discourse, we tend to envision cities as constantly growing structures. Even in the “shrinking” or stagnating post-socialist European cities we dream of large developments to fill in the “empty” spaces of the many brownfields. Alternative proposals to those of the commodified real estate market are non-existent or quickly hushed away.

During this year’s summer school we took a closer look at one such site stretched along the river Hornád, near the city centre of Kosice, Slovakia. Trapped in a permanent limbo state between the utopian desire of future city district and stagnating reality, there is a peculiar quality to its in-betweenness. We wanted to consider the site not as a blank void soon to be filled but as an already existing network of dynamic human and non-human relationships that could be the starting point for degrowth utopias beyond the anthropocentric present.

Through different methods of mapping, phenomenological research and dramatical storytelling we tried to give voice to various present and future actors and thus smoothly move between now and then.

Young professionals and students from various countries and disciplines from journalism, sociology and law, to architecture.

Selected participants: Orsolya Bajusz, Markéta Burkotová, Violeta Gjorgjevska, Johannes Hollenhorst, Hedvig Jansson, Zuzana Jarošová, Adéla Kolářová, Tabea Latocha, Karolina Michalik, Katarína Onderková, Klára Peloušková, Nina Vukadin, Elizabeth Short, Zsófia Szőke

Invited guests: Marcel Uhrin, Philippe Rekacewicz, Michaela Zakuťanská, Kateřina Sidiropulu Janků, Ján Solčáni, Diana Lucas-Drogan, Laura Naum, Petrică Mogoș, Alin Cincă

The summer school was acompanied by public events that opened discussions with various actors outside of the comfort zone of the school.

23. 2. 2020 | Book launch and film premiere
Never-never school meets Budapest to discuss the topic and results of the summer school 2019, premier the short documentary about the school and present the publication Mapping the in-between: Interdisciplinary methods for envisioning other futures (Available in Shop).

How to create a better place for life and development in our city with respect? Together with the local audience and participants of the Never-never school we met at the new location of our partner organisation Valyo to discuss the transferability of the topics and methods of the summer school to the context of Budapest. Our local partner in the discussion was Gergely Kukucska, an architect and member of Valyo, who loves to work with small scale interventions, activism and social connected topics.

Facebook event

06.09.2019 | pop-up exhibition in VUNU Gallery
The outputs of the summer school were presented as a multi-media collaborative exihibition. It was an important informal occasion to start a discussion on alternatives in planning and the future of the site with local people.

01.09.2019 | Public discussion We discussed the topic of utopia together with our guests Romanian guests KAJET Journal and local Ta Take Town from Prešov during the public event Mestoláska: Realities X Utopias

This year's Never-never School wouldn't be possible without the support from:

Visegrad Fund, Fond na podporu umenia, K13, Valyo - Város és Folyó Egyesület, Zahradnícká fakulta Mendelovy univerzity v Brně, Kino Úsmev, Tabačka Kulturfabrik, Technická Univerzita v Košiciach, TU Berlin and Fachgebiet Städtebau und Siedlungswesen, Institut für Stadt- und Regionalplannung TU Berlin

The project is co-financed by the Governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.

Projekt z verejných zdrojov podporil Fond na podporu umenia.

Podujatia sa konali v priestoroch investičných projektov, ktoré boli implementované v rámci opatrenia 7.1 prioritnej osi „Európske hlavné mesto kultúry Košice 2013“ Regionálneho operačného programu a sú spolufinancované Európskou úniou vo výške 85 % z Európskeho fondu regionálneho rozvoja a vo výške 10 % zo štátneho rozpočtu Slovenskej republiky. Viac informácií nájdete na Ropka.sk, MPSR.sk a tiež na Culture.gov.sk, ERDF: Investícia do vašej budúcnosti.

Lýdia Grešáková, Alexandra Motýľ, Viktória Mravčáková, Zuzana Révészová, Hana Skljarzska, Zuzana Tabačková

see also the previous year of Never-never School