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Showtimes and Tickets

Urban Literacy

12.03.24 kl. 18:30 – 21:00Urban LiteracyFredrikstadRebellhusetRegistration

Urban Literacy vol. 2 – Bicycle Safari

20.08.24 kl. 14:00 – 16:30Urban Literacy vol. 2 – Bicycle SafariFredrikstadRegistration

Urban Literacy vol. 2 – How the automobile changed Fredrikstad

20.08.24 kl. 18:00 – 20:30Urban Literacy vol. 2 – How the automobile changed FredrikstadFredrikstadRebellhusetRegistration

Urban literacy / Samtaler om byforståelse

How can we understand, read and talk about the city? Østfold Internasjonale Teater and Alexandros Mistriotis invite you to the event series Samtaler om byforståelse – conversations on Urban Literacy.

Cities are becoming more and more important, as they become more complex, with the result that it is ever more difficult to participate in their evolution. How do we talk about the buidling blocks of the city without limiting the discussion?

ØIT and Alexandros Mistriotis are initiating Samtaler om byforståelse, an exploratory program about Urban Literacy. ØITs Urban Literacy program is a part of Alexandros Mistriotis artistic project The Reception (premiering in Fredrikstad June 2024), the urban walk whereby we invite the inhabitants of Fredrikstad to be travellers in their own city.

The research and development activities that contribute to the creation of The Reception and the Urban Literacy program are all elements of a larger undertaking with the goal of better understanding our cities and how we may participate in their development. The underlying premise is that Fredrikstad – as indeed every place – is the centre of the world. Can we talk about this?

Urban Literacy, Vol. 2:
How the automobile has Transformed Fredrikstad

With Ulrik Eriksen and Erling Gunnufsen

Welcome to a playful, yet serious, exploration of how the automobile has transformed Fredrikstad during the last half-century. How can we «read» this in the city centre and its outlying residential areas?

To prepare our conversation we will first embark upon a bicycle safari. Then we will reconvene in a more convivial setting for a structural analysis from different perspectives, and where we will dare to ask some difficult questions. All are welcome to participate in the conversation.

14:00-16:30
Bicycle Safari!

Meeting point: Rebellhuset, Trosvikstranda 9, Fredrikstad
Max participants: 20
Gratis, reservation required

Bring your own bike and experience an uncommon, guided tour through local neighbourhoods!

Our safari will begin in the city centre and examine diverse inventions that have dramatically altered traffic as we know it. Then we will take our bikes on the city ferry a short voyage upriver. The next part of the journey will navigate through Sellebakk and Begby. One is a residential area developed for society without private cars. The other reveals the designs and priorities of a car-centric society – from two different eras. Along the way will identify more inventions that were inspired to service the needs of the automobile. This promises to be an entertaining adventure!

We will move at a casual tempo with several brief stops along the way. There are perhaps three modest hills where it is possible to walk your bike if appropriate. Bring a water bottle and dress according to the weather!

18:00- 20:30*
How the Car Transformed Norway/Fredrikstad

(and why it is so difficult to reverse?)

Location: Rebellhuset, Trosvikstranda 9, Fredrikstad
Max participants: 40
Gratis, reservation required

*The Conversations will continue informally until 21:00 for those who desire

The evening conversation at Rebellhuset will be introduced by two presentations. These will deconstruct just how the car shapes society, from a conceptual perspective as well as the practical, and from the public planning and regulation processes. They will offer historic perspectives and contemporary dilemmas. Some examples will take a bird’s eye view of national developments, while others will look at local examples particular to Fredrikstad.

We also want to ask some of the big questions. What is required to truly wean society off its addiction to cars? What kind of mechanisms, processes, and durations could enable such a radical transformation? And how could prospective solutions/improvements be implemented in a way that does not favour the haves over the have-nots?

Key participants Vol. 2:

Ulrik Eriksen (born 1974) has been working as a freelance writer since 2005, including for Dagbladet and Dagens Næringsliv. Since 2009, he has been Morgenbladet’s regular film critic, and he is also a regular online columnist for Morgenbladet, where he writes about transport and car culture. In his book Et land på fire hjul: Hvordan bilen har erobret Norge (A country on four wheels: How the car has conquered Norway), he shows how the introduction of the car has had dramatic consequences for Norwegian urban and suburban development.

Erling Gunnufsen (b. 1958) recently retired as senior advisor for sustainable community development in Fredrikstad Municipality. Throughout his professional life, he has worked with public planning and sustainable resource management in the state, county, and municipality, as well as in the private sector. The newly retired planner grew up in Sellebakk and has unique, historic insights about the local community, which in the 60s and 70s was designed for a life without cars. 

Artist Alexandros Mistriotis and ØIT curator-producer James Moore will again host the conversation.

Why?

1.) Through our work with The Reception ØIT have become aware of the need to focus on Urban Literacy. An important part of our early experimentation is to consider the Building Blocks of the City, which may be anything from public squares to memory. We have also become keenly aware of the significance of the automobile in the formation of the city and society – historically, currently, and for the foreseeable future. Therefore, we choose to devote one of our three Urban Literacy events to interrogate the matter.

2.) Fredrikstad kommune is currently working on its Street Network and Street Use Plan. A major goal is to make it easier for inhabitants to walk, bicycle, and use public transportation. This enhances our ability to use Fredrikstad as a case study for local challenges that are national and international in character. The plan itself will not be a central focus of the conversation. But will help to underscore some of the structural challenges, both where the developments of the past 50 years are concerned, as well as the difficulties in taking broad, political consensus and translating that into the bureaucratic plan processes.

Both the safari and the conversation have links back to Urban Literacy Vol. 1 and the phenomenon of catalogue houses. The critical link not the houses themselves, which improved the quality of life for many, but the design of residential areas where many of the catalogue houses blossomed.

Relevant data:

  • 88 percent of those of legal age in Nedre Glomma own or dispose of a car. This is higher than the national average (84 per cent).
  • 41 per cent in Nedre Glomma state that they have very good or good access to public transport where they live. It is the lowest in the entire country.
  • In Fredrikstad, 71 per cent use the car (either as driver or passenger) for daily journeys.
  • 8 percent travel by public transport on a daily basis in Fredrikstad. In comparison, 33 percent travel by public transport in Inner Oslo.
  • Almost as many people in Oslo as Nedre Glomma have access to a car on the day of travel, but far more in Fredrikstad use the car.
  • 82 per cent in Fredrikstad have access to free parking with their employer.
  • Much of the driving in Fredrikstad is so-called light driving. More than one in four work journeys is less than three kilometres.

Sources: Travel habits in Oslo and Viken 2918/2019 and Travel habits in the seven largest city regions

Previous event:
Urban Literacy vol. 1 – Understanding the City

Vol. 1 begun a process which will investigate possible models and platforms that the Urban Literacy program can utilize. With a diverse group of special guests we started the evening with a couple short presentations. These would set the table for an open dialogue where everyone present was welcome to contribute.

ØIT specializes in creating and presenting art in public space that engages society at many different levels, and in many different phases of the process(es) of research, creative development, and implementation. The meetings between artistic practices and other practices often generate constructive insights and strategies that are useful across disciplines. We would like to invite more people – with specialists and non- specialists to join these conversations, to contribute to a mutual understanding and enrichment.

Key participants vol. 1

  • Erling Gunnufsen, City planner, Fredrikstad kommune
  • Anne-Kristine Kronborg, Architecture historian, Associate professor NMBU Department Urban and Regional Planning.
  • Marius Grønning, Urbanist, Associate professor NMBU, ØIT Associate Citizen for (UN)COMMON SPACES
  • Stine Ferguson, previous City center leader in Fredrikstad 2014–2017
  • Alexandros Mistriotis, Artist, The Reception
  • James Moore, curator-producer Østfold Internasjonale Teater

More:

>> Artistic Acupuncture – using creative methods in urban development
>> In Search of Democracy 3.0; Drawing ideas for Future Fredrikstad
>> Uncovering lost meaning: The Reception in Moss i 2020

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