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MAP OFFICE
RUNSCAPE | SALON
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ABOUT:
MOMENTUM marks the finnisage of the exhibition Runscape with a Salon and artist workshop with the artist/architect team behind Map Office. Visiting from Hong Kong, Map Office present the body of work leading up to Runscape (2010) and map out future directions for Runscape Berlin. Runscape is a political response to the current privatization and militarization of our cities. When running remains the only unbounded action in the urban field, Map Office scout paths through back alleys and left over spaces, revealing alternative routes to the globalized and controlled urban spaces while engaging with the perspectives and locations integral to the history of cinema. Following the fragmented course of images, a narrative unfolds the history of street fighting, from the 19th century Parisian revolutions, 1968, and up to contemporary combat. Having begin this project in Hong Kong, Map Office apply this framework to the streets of Berlin.
MAP OFFICE is a multidisciplinary platform devised by Laurent Gutierrez and Valérie Portefaix.
This duo of artists/architects has been based in Hong Kong since 1996, working on physical and imaginary territories using varied means of expression including drawing, photographs, video, installations, performance and literary and theoretical texts. Their entire project forms a critique of spatio-temporal anomalies and documents how human beings subvert and appropriate space.
Laurent Gutierrez is an Associate Professor at the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University where he leads the Environment and Interior Design discipline and the Master of Strategic Design as well as the Master in Urban Environments Design. He is also the co-director of SD SPACE LAB. He is currently doing a PhD on the “Processes of Modernization and Urbanization in China focusing on the Pearl River Delta region”.
Valérie Portefaix is the principal of MAP OFFICE. She received her Master of Architecture degree from School of Architecture Paris-Belleville and a PhD in Urbanism from University Pierre Mendes France. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
