The Knight’s Move: Bradley L. Garrett

Wednesday 11 October 2017, 20:00-22:00 hrs
Location: Stroom, Hogewal 1-9, The Hague
Language spoken: English

Moderator: Patrick van der Hijden (Angl)
RSVP: reserveren@stroom.nl
Tickets: € 5,- (to be paid at the door)

This autumn, The Knight's Move has a diptych of lectures lined up: the physical city with Bradley L. Garrett, and the digital city with Mireille Hildebrandt.

Tonight Bradley L. Garrett will talk about the rise of pseudo-public spaces or privately owned public spaces (POPS). Garrett shows the importance of public space as sanctuaries of equality precisely because they should be held in common rather than owned privately. The challenge is to define the limits of the ‘public city' when the local seems to be continuing to give way to the global. Read more at the bottom of this page.
www.bradleygarrett.com

Part 2 on Friday 24 November 2017
Mireille Hildebrandt will explore digital space and the cityscape. >> read more

The Knight's Move
The Knight's Move is a series of lectures by eminent international speakers who stand out by their unusual, enlightening and inspirational visions concerning the city, urbanity, the public domain, and community. Just as the knight moves in an atypical and unusual way across the chessboard, The Knight's Move likewise wants to cut across all disciplines and thus stimulate rethinking the city. The engaging talks are followed by a dialogue with the audience.

The Knight's Move is an initiative by Stroom Den Haag and currently organized in collaboration with LAPS Amsterdam and made possible in part by the Haagse Bluf Fonds (via Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds) and The City of The Hague.

Survey The Knight's Move 2009-present

These squares are our squares: be angry about the privatisation of public space - by Bradley L Garrett in The Guardian, 25 July 2017

Text by Bradley L. Garrett
"Public space is more than the space between buildings, it is also the space where we rest and relax, the space where we meet friends and family, and the space where we are assured - whoever we might be - that we have a place. Cities are filled with buildings that will deny you entry or cheerfully charge you for the privilege, but public spaces are where we should all feel welcome, regardless of our income, differences or desires. Public spaces are vital sanctuaries of equality precisely because no one can own them: they are held in common.

Yet, in the past few decades, many existing public spaces have been sold to corporations - turned into pseudo-public spaces often euphemistically described as ‘POPS' - Privately Owned Public Space. Despite the promising sheen of ‘regeneration' - often heralded by pop-up shops, hipster cafes and a budding arts scene - when the construction dust settles too often public spaces once maintained by civil bodies have been quietly passed into the hands of corporations. In these new ‘public realms', our rights are severely curtailed by corporate land management policies and monitored by the swivelling eyes of dome cameras tracking our every transgression. Photography is banned. Loitering is banned. Protest is banned. The public realm becomes space fit only for consumption; all other activities are rendered subversive, deviant, out-of-control.

The challenge then for this Knight's Move is to define the limits of the ‘public city' when the local seems to be continuing to give way to the global. This question seems even more pertinent in a city like The Hague, the political and geographic heart of Europe."

Bradley L. Garrett, Forth Rail Bridge, Edinburgh, Scotland
photo: Bradley L. Garrett
Bradley L. Garrett, Aldgate East, East London, United Kingdom
The Knight’s Move: Bradley L. Garrett
photo: design: Lennarts en de Bruijn