The first version in 2015 of the city as a strategy was made for Uitwijken during the first Bruges Triennial.
The city in motion, the city as a project, the city as a strategy,
the city malleable between its citizens’ fingers.
City models are used to think about the city, about its past, present and future.
During Uitwijken,, artist Jonas Vansteenkiste invites the residents of various Bruges neighbourhoods to gather around the black strategy tables to think about their surroundings and how they can give shape to these.
Discussions, wishes and conversations are carried out around the tables and given shape.
Each of the tables represents a place where the Uitwijken culture caravan has visited,
and together they form the Bruges territory.
“The city as a strategy” is an installation piece that things about the city from the residents’ perspective.
The clay, which symbolises the city’s malleability, and as long as it is mixed with water, passers-by can give shape to the city.
The result of this artwork that grew during the Uitwijken event and the public opening of the triennial can be seen on the grass square behind the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk.
This piece is a community art project.
in 2024 Vansteenkiste made a more open adaptation of the work.
Vansteenkiste elaborates on the tension between the city model as a policy object for politics and its democratic malleable model. Where dreams and desires above all take shape independently of objectives.
