Lunch seminar: On Spatial agencing and Spatial practices

Andreas Diedrich's talk discusses the performative approaches to the study of space. Specifically, focusing on the concept of spatial agencing as a meaningful way to understand the fluidity of space – how space is organized and organizes. The value of this concept is illustrated through two cases of organizing where the role of spatiality came to the fore – 1) a training center in South Africa, established by Swedish vocational trainers to train local carpenters (after complaints from a large Swedish furniture manufacturer about the quality of the products sourced from the country) and, 2) a special unit of the Swedish Public Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen) established with the sole purpose to support refugees and their family members to become employed and integrated into society. Both cases help illustrate how space is a social construction, but also how the space(s) thus constructed capacitate(s) others to act – often in unintended ways.

Insights are also drawn from the anthology “Space and Organizing – On Spatial Agencing” (2023), edited with Gustavo Guzman and Franck Cochoy.

Natalie Noviks  will discuss critical spatial practice—an interdisciplinary field situated between public art and socially engaged architecture. Her research focuses on how critical spatial practice unfolds in the context of independent and self-organized cultural spaces. Specifically analyzing maintenance practices, the project explores how social movements reclaim neglected architectures, transforming them into sites of resistance and community. Central to her research is the concept of spatial activism, which aims to illustrate how these grassroots initiatives not only occupy space but actively produce it—shaping environments that reflect values of commons