In a look together with Martin Safransky, new informal or “unruly” ways of liveability are addressed. Martin Safransky is a philosopher and social theorist currently serving as Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute for Language, Literature and Anthropology (CSIC), the biggest public research institution in Spain, where he leads the Liveable Futures Project. He is author and co-author of several works devoted to such futures, and investigates what he calls “unruly”, informal politics of liveability amidst permanent planetary instability. These informal new ways to social change and liveable futures, and our podcast with Martin addresses them in comparison to traditional approaches in utopian concepts and ways of change.

In a podcast with Natasha Sharma from Mumbai/India and Dee Moxon from Bristol/ UK, the role of art as a catalysator for building communities was addressed. Natasha Sharma is co-founder, creative director and curator of the Govandi Arts Festival in Mumbai. Dee Moxon is one of the directors of the Lamplighter Arts CIC in Bristol, making The Church Road Lantern Parade.

Both Govandi and the Lantern Parade started under adverse conditions. The Govandi area in Mumbai is inhabited by the city’s largest resettlement population, has sanitary issues, lack of infrastructure, garbage, and crime. The Church Road Lantern Parade in Bristol began working across its local community which experiences socioeconomic problems. They work with all residents, including refugees from different cultures, the event was started after racist activity in the area by non -residents. Marginalization was the common daily experience in both Mumbai and Bristol.

Both the Govandi Festival and the Lantern Parade, assisted by Jonathan Kennedy from the British Council, follow the philosophy that making art together, in a group, helps to connect people and through that, a sense of community is given purposefulness, and meaning. Installed in two different cultural contexts, Indian and English, and despite adverse conditions, the philosophy was highly successful: In its power of imagination, art is a strong catalyst in building communities, it helps to generate a space of belonging and identity.

Ideal Spaces had an interview with Jonathan Kennedy, former member of the British Council, on the role of art in building communities. Two communities were examined, located in two different regions and cultures, India and England. Critical success factors for building up and sustaining communities were examined, and how to build them from scratch under unfavourable starting conditions.

Interview with Professor Alex Josephson, Toronto, price-awarded architect and co-founder of Partisans group, an association looking for new ways in architecture. In our interview, an evergreen was addressed that came to a new life: the ideal city. The idea of the ideal city is not dead, but as an inspiration is needed today more than ever. It is about building a sustainable future for a humane life in cities, outlining different concepts of planned cities in history, from the background of the Canadian situation. Two concepts developed by Alex and his team are presented: 'Innisfil', an ideal city on the earth, as Alex said; and 'The Hearn', an ideal city in a building. These two different kinds of concepts were explained and put in context. Innisfil is based on a combination of two “classical” models: the utopian one of a concentric circle, combined with the Roman grid. Innisfil considers issues critical for city life, such as building typologies, city scale, population density, and neighbourhood. The Hearn, a former power plant that was the largest in North America, is a concept of reuse that goes in a different direction than Innisfil, the ‘ideal city on the earth’: it could become a vessel for cohabitation, like a city.

Please watch the video of this interesting interview here: https://www.idealspaces.org/podcasts/ideal-city-revisited-alex-josephson/

In our series about the younger generation, we had an interview with the young Ukrainian artist and music producer Syfromfaraway who also makes his own albums. We asked Sy about his view on society and its important trends according to his view, on the younger generation and their relations to social media, and how he conceives the recent situation in its total. We also asked him about his fears in regards to the future, and how to cope with fear in a positive, not fearful way.

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Interview with Dr. Andy Harrod, human geographer with a therapeutic background and head of the research group for health and wellbeing. Andy speaks about community/individual today, the influence of nature for individual wellbeing and identity, and about the positive effects of nature-related activities for communities. In these regards, the relations between the city, community and the individual today are looked at, and the role of green areas inside the city.

Interview with Ana Schluth, student of architecture, about the life of younger Americans in times of increasing economic pressure, compared to their parents’ generation; about the shift from online life to real life; about the city wanted and the need for a human-scaled city.

In our series about the younger generation, Ideal Spaces interviewed Sarah Haeflinger, student of architecture and urban design at the Catholic University of America, Washington D.C. In the context of the Ideal Spaces workshop on Identity, Place, and Citizenship, Sarah speaks about her generation, how a humane city should look like, together with the need for a human scale and green areas, and what this would mean for citizenship.