Ecumenopolis sets the departure point for our practice as well as for the exhibition METASITU: Ecumenopolis - The Whole World Is One City curated by Eszter Szakacs (tranzit.hu 4th November -9th December 2016), where we explored examples of metamodernist ”global authenticity” within the context of this city, one of planetary dimensions and only walled by the stratosphere. We identify situations that, although seemingly embedded within a local context, could easily be extrapolated to different territories and scales.
By bringing forward a theoretical framework that suggests that the whole world is urban, we are also raising many questions about its implications. How can we talk and dissect this urban carpet of a scale so colossal that we have not been able to even see it until just recently? How can we, as humans, reframe our existence within this world? What are the channels through which urban practices are distributed? Does Ecumenopolis have a conscience?
At this transitional stage in our urban world, we find that it is more important to raise these questions than to necessarily answer them. With METASITU: Ecumenopolis - The Whole World Is One City we wanted to create a viewpoint that could allow us to look back at the city and understand it as an absolute body—a seamless territory, an infrastructurally connected entity, and series of daily routines.
***This text first appeared on the exhibition catalogue, and was edited by Eszter Szakacs and Nick Axel.
*** ERSTE Foundation is main partner of tranzit
Photos by Ljosha Chashchyn and Virág Lödi
TDCU IZZ
The chronicle of increasing isolation of a group of artists attempting to reach the World's most remote human inhabited place, the island of Tristan da Cunha.
THE VISIT
Meziara is a village in Northern Lebanon, where most of its residents do business in Nigeria for most of the year, before returning every summer. The suburb to an invisible city.
TORA BORA
The extraction and export of 'Jerusalem Stone' is one of the most lucrative businesses in the Palestinian Territories, and remains highly unregulated. Everyone wants a piece of the holy land.
MEMENTO LOCI
Souvenirs are tokens that help to perpetuate spatial narratives. Mass produced around the world, they serve as a vehicle through which power narratives are unfolded and displayed.
MEMENTO LOCI unpacks some of these strategies.
14th DISTRICT
Slavutych was built to rehouse the workers of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. It is made up of 13 districts, each inspired by a different Soviet city. With 86, we are building a new district based on Athens.
STOP OVER CITY
Moscow City is a decaying business district in Central Moscow. By linking it to the two largest airports in the city and giving it the status of 'international transfer zone' we would revitalize this vacant territory.
STATES, STATUS,
STATUES & STATUTES
VDNHk park in central Moscow is a spatial technology that serves to advance an imperialistic idea based on an old regime.
(re)appropriating (post)soviet narratives.
NATION STATE OF MIND
Nation State of Mind proposes an alternative understanding of the nation in a post-national world. What is the role of territoriality and locality in Ecumenopolis?
#mariupolwillnotdie
#itistheworldthatwillend
Mariupol is a mono-industry town in Eastern Ukraine. Its population has been shrinking since the collapse of the USSR. This is a manifesto to embrace its shrinking condition and work with it.
EXPEDITION TO ECUMENOPOLIS
Expedition to Ecumenopolis is a series of workshops that we deliver to different groups in order to collectively think about ideas evolving around contemporary urbanism in the age of hyper-globalisation.
VOCABULARY FOR ECUMENOPOLIS
In the era of Globalization and the Antropocene, we find that there are a new set of urban qualities/phenomena that take place globally. Here is a glossary that attempts to identify some of those.