Michael Rakowitz is a US based artist.
In this particular project he has engaged with communities in practical terms. One day while out walking he saw man standing below an external heating vent, and so he decided to design a heating system that would recycle this heating into a living space. He did exactly that! He worked with homeless people and developed a few interventions that would enable homeless people to benefit from these external heating vents. These Parasite shelters which are designed in collaboration with homeless people for whom he custom designs, act as sleeping shelters, plugged into the external heating vent, insulating itself into a system of the city providing warm and dry enclosures. They are made from easily resourced materials, temporary ( but no bio-degradable) such as plastic bags, tape, and wire. These tent like structures inflate and deflate when necessary and are easily transported. These alien pod type structures can be considered site specific, if you can consider the owner (homeless person) as being or having a site. They are also nomadic in nature, appropriating urban space.
ParaSITE
In this particular project he has engaged with communities in practical terms. One day while out walking he saw man standing below an external heating vent, and so he decided to design a heating system that would recycle this heating into a living space. He did exactly that! He worked with homeless people and developed a few interventions that would enable homeless people to benefit from these external heating vents. These Parasite shelters which are designed in collaboration with homeless people for whom he custom designs, act as sleeping shelters, plugged into the external heating vent, insulating itself into a system of the city providing warm and dry enclosures. They are made from easily resourced materials, temporary ( but no bio-degradable) such as plastic bags, tape, and wire. These tent like structures inflate and deflate when necessary and are easily transported. These alien pod type structures can be considered site specific, if you can consider the owner (homeless person) as being or having a site. They are also nomadic in nature, appropriating urban space.
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| Michael Rakowitz- Parasite Shelters |
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| Michael Rakowitz- Parasite Shelters |
''Working with communities becomes a way for me to better understand a city. I want to understand my own urban situation, so I really am interested in how there are these social networks defining a city that I don’t always have access to. For instance, when I was conceiving paraSITE, it became clear that the homeless had a completely different topographical relationship to the city than I did, which was a fascinating education into how a city presents itself—or even conceals itself''. Michael Rakowitz
Rakowitz cooked with a group of adolescents who live in Chelsea and participate in after-school and summer programs at the Hudson Guild Community Center. Some had relatives in the US Army stationed in Iraq. While preparing and then consuming the food it opened up many avenues for topics of conversations. Rakowitz wanted to bring attention ot the word 'Iraq' - in this case, attached to food, as a representative of culture and not as a stream of green-tinted images shown on CNN of a war-torn place.
The project functioned as a social sculpture: while cooking and eating, the students engaged each other on the topic of the war and drew parallels with their own lives, at times making comparisons with bullies in relation to how they perceive the conflict.
The project functioned as a social sculpture: while cooking and eating, the students engaged each other on the topic of the war and drew parallels with their own lives, at times making comparisons with bullies in relation to how they perceive the conflict.
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| Michael Rakowitz- Enemy Kitchen |
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