[A]FA ONGOING: TAMALE OLD AIRFIELD | INTERSPECIES NURSERY | HADUWA CONTINUATIONS

This term, [Applied] Foreign Affairs II covers three ongoing [A]FA projects located in Ghana, Liberia and Austria, with previously selected students and team members.

 

TAMALE OLD AIRFIELD

We will continue working towards the implementation of the first zones of [A]FA’s Tamale Old Airfield project, commissioned by the municipality of the city of Tamale in northern Ghana, in collaboration with Boomkwekerij Ebben (NL), VeloSolutions Pump for Peace (CH), and others. The focus will be on addressing actual needs in resonance with the site and project development, such as adaptation of designs according to available budgets, and engagement with the community and potential stakeholders, construction preparations.

Teaching: Baerbel Mueller, Daniil Zhiltsov, Abdul-Rauf Issahaque

 

INTERSPECIES INTERSECTION LAB

Following a research trip to Liberia in April 2024, the [A]FA Interspecies Intersections lab has undertaken a series of excursions to explore the natural world and fourth nature of Vienna, along with its diverse creatures inhabiting the city and its periphery. Guided by expert ornithologists, beekeepers, and eco-guards, the lifecycles, social dynamics, and habitats of various species have been investigated, focusing on their embedment into their context, typology, scale, materiality, building technique, usage, and appropriation. Findings have been shared at the Angewandte Festival within the INTRA project at the “Space for Research” exhibition*. Since July 2024, a web platform, the Atlas of Habitats has been conceptualized and developed. This has been followed by a field lab in Liberia, in August 2024, to deeply explore and catalog the habitats of selected species in the tropical forest. These habitats might serve as role models for potential and ultimate contextual architectures for humans in the future, which will be explored in the winter term. Further, the “Atlas of Habitats” will be extended in winter 2024/2025 in Austria, to capture the yearly cycle and seasons.

Teaching: Philipp Reinsberg, Baerbel Mueller

* This project takes place within the framework of the Angewandte Program for Inter- and Transdisciplinary Projects in Art and Research (INTRA) and is funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research, granted to Magdalena Gorecka and Philipp Reinsberg.

 

HADUWA CONTINUATIONS

Since 2022, [A]FA Continuations has been back at and focusing on an the Haduwa Arts and Culture Institute, located at the Atlantic Ocean in Ghana’s Central Region, through three lenses: CARING, EXPERIMENTING, and PLANNING. CARING involves the soft renovation of the Haduwa Apata, a staging ground and bamboo dome realized by [A]FA between 2013-2015. EXPERIMENTING covers performative interventions and applied material research to create parameters for further planning steps. PLANNING encompasses the design of a gathering space on site, as well as a sanitary facility. This term, in collaboration with the Haduwa directors, we are investigating strategies for realization.

TEACHING: Baerbel Mueller, Philipp Reinsberg

 

 

This term, [Applied] Foreign Affairs II is for previously selected students and team members only.