CURSUS : Cours en ligne de l'Université Rennes 2

A speculative programme designed to foment collaborative practices, community, and new approaches to urban space, involving online and face to face seminars exploring the contemporary urban environment and questions of “Third Spaces as Intercultural Places for Commoning” through interdisciplinary collaboration.

The Rennes Pitstop of the Public Arts Garage builds on the two Public Arts Garage modules, initially co-designed by Alexandra Regan-Toland and Martin Leibinger (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar) in collaboration with faculty members and students from the University of Barcelona, Concordia University (Montreal), Queen’s University Belfast (Northern Ireland), Rennes2 University (France) and University College Cork (Ireland) and first developed in Spring and Summer of 2022. A first BIP meeting took place in Barcelona in Autumn 2023. It is a continuation of academic engagements and creative collaborations within the international Graduate School of Creative Approaches to Public Space spearheaded in Université Rennes 2.

The BIP programme aims to help Master and doctoral students develop new methods of collaboration and approaches to interaction with and consideration of public spaces and common knowledge through on-site, hybrid and virtual interaction. The programme seeks to develop speculative strategies, to embrace the idea of stepping into the unknown and unfolding the potential of collaboration within a truly international context.
Public Arts Garage: https://pag2022.uni-weimar.de/#/home


“Third Spaces as Intercultural Places for Commoning”

The term Third Space is used to characterize locations outside “home” (first space) and “work” (second space) where people engage social relations. Ray Oldenburg who coined the term, argues that third places are important for civil society, democracy and civic engagement, as they answer to the desire to promote a sense of community and help to establish feelings of a sense of belonging. Nothing contributes to a sense of belonging in a community as much as membership in a third place.

For the Public Arts Garage BIP in Rennes 2024, we would like to focus on alternative creative spaces whether they are mainstream Third Spaces or underground temporary occupations: how can this type of space increase or make creativity emerge? Situated in a kind of Third Space off the university site, for the past 3 years the Graduate School CAPS has been exploring interdisciplinary and cross methodologies, field studies, and artistic or action research, that are all based on experimentation, on field studies, participatory projects and temporary occupation. This course interrogates how Third Places can stimulate artistic and interdisciplinary research and can become themselves a topic for research.

• Online Seminars: Tuesdays 8, 15, 22, 29 October 2024, 17-19h (CET)
• In-person workshops in Rennes: Monday 4 – Friday 8 November 2024