is a long-term investigative program initiated to deal with politics of memory, controversial space and monuments, digitalization and heritage.
In our globalized world the accelerating speed of socio-political and cultural change collides with the longue-durée of heritage sites and territories. As social and political contexts around places with a public meaning change, controversies often arise.
Publication Re-Charting Places @ Contested Spaces – Concerted Projects: Designs for Vulnerable Memories, Lettera Ventidue Edizioni, Syracuse, Italy, April 2021
Focussing on rereading the cityscape, granting visibility and recognition to voices and histories previously silenced, the program focuses on fostering memory-making and processing through the development of innovative, participatory methods that do not physically touch the spaces involved.
Lectures & Workshop Resignify City @ Media Architecture Biennale 2021, Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 24 June 2021
Human activity and its far-reaching interactions have always transformed territories by moving people, plants, goods and animals. As such, territories have become richly stratified – and interactions are always mutual and two-way. Countries and cities projecting their influence elsewhere have, in turn, been transformed by external inputs.
Voiced Space is conceptualized by Hybrid Space Lab for Nieuwe Instituut the Dutch institute for Architecture, Design and Digital Culture.
Lectures, Workshops & Conference International Research Program @ Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, 2019~2022
Lecture @ Media Architecture Biennial 2020, Amsterdam, 29 June-3 Juli 2020
Lecture & Workshop @ Media Architecture Biennial 2021, Amsterdam, 27 June-2 July 2021
By unlocking the potential laying at the intersection between arts, technology, memory studies and sciences, Deep Space has cracked open the interwoven, historically painful meanings of the controversial monument Valle de los Caídos, envisioning its possible futures, once Franco’s remains will be exhumed from the site.
Exhibition, Lecture & Discussion 5 June 2019 @ Goethe Institut, Madrid, 5 June 2019
Article “Creative Crossovers: Negotiating Past and Future” in the University of Southern California Public Diplomacy Magazine issue summer 2019.Monuments stand as a tangible testimony to what is untouchable: memory and history in their collective dimension.As vehicles of meaning, monuments are ambassadors affecting the public negotiation of narratives
Article Creative Crossovers @ Public Diplomacy Magazine, University of Southern California, USC Annenberg, USC Centre on Public Diplomacy, USC Masters of Public Diplomacy Program, USA, 7 June 2019
How can design research contribute to the collective processing of contested heritage?How to re-signify traditional physical monuments and heritage with the help of creative visions and hybrid (combined physical and digital) tools?
Voiced Space is conceptualized by Hybrid Space Lab for Nieuwe Instituut the Dutch institute for Architecture, Design and Digital Culture.
Research @ Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, 2019
As a consequence of the more than 65 years long near absence of human activity, the Korean DMZ land strip has become a verdant 984 square kilometers nature reserve where endangered flora and fauna species had the chance to regain space.
The Korean DMZ has become a testimony to unintentional beauty. Thriving vegetation and undisturbed wildlife now cover the painful, conflict-born void along the military demarcation.
Over the last few years, it has gathered international attention due to its symbolic value as well as to individual and bilateral bids by North and South Korea securing UNESCO Biosphere status for areas of the DMZ.
Workshop DMZpace @ DMZ, CCL, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea, 30 May-3 June 2010Exhibition @ Yeonnamjang Gallery Seoul, 2 May-17 May 2020
Exhibition @ Korean Cultural Center Paris, 10 September-6 November 2020
Deep Space is a long-term investigative program initiated to deal with politics of memory, controversial space and monuments, digitalization and heritage.
Deep Space: re-signifying Valle de los Caídos aims at developing creative processes, concepts, and ideas that can break through and transform the symbolic power of the place.
Workshop Deep Space: re-signifying Valle de los Caídos @ Medialab Prado & Valle de los Caídos, Madrid, 25-27 October 2018
Opening, Exhibition, Lecture & Discussion Lost Memory – Recovered Memory @ Goethe Institut & Fundación Pablo Iglesias, Madrid, 5 June 2019
Workshop & Lecture @ ISEA 2022 Symposium “Possibilities” Heritage and Futures, Centre de Cultura Contemporània, Barcelona, 12 June & 14 2022
Hybrid Space Lab’s contribution entitled “Bismarck Beyond” to the Bismarck Neu Denken competition is exhibited at Foundation Historical Museums Hamburg from 26 July till 16 August 2023.
Bismarck Beyond @ Foundation Historical Museums Hamburg, 26 July-16 August 2023
Publication by Sílvia Marimon Molas at the leading Catalan newspaper ARA on how Spanish authorities are relocating symbols of the dictatorship.The article on Spain’s ‘uncomfortable memory’ refers to the Hybrid Space Lab’s project Deep Space.
Deep Space is a long-term investigative program initiated to deal with politics of memory, controversial space and monuments, digitalization and heritage.
Publication Uncomfortable Memory, Sílvia Marimon Molas @ ARA Catalan Newspaper, Barcelona, 16 July 2022
Lecture at the UNA University PhD Workshop Heritage Hybridizations: Concepts, Scales and Spaces.
Lecture Hybrid Heritage @ UNA University Alliance Europe, Panthéon-Sorbonne University, Galerie Colbert, 2 rue Vivienne, Paris, 31 March 2021, Online, 1 July 2022
Published @ UNA University, Panthéon-Sorbonne University, Paris, 1 July 2022
The lecture and workshop Conflict Space takes place at the International Symposium on Electronic Art ISEA 2022 “Possibilities – Heritage and Futures” at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona.
Lecture & Workshop Conflict Space @ ISEA 2022 Symposium “Possibilities”, Heritage and Futures @ Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona, 12 June 2022 & 14 June 2022
How to re-signify heritage and physical monuments with the help of creative visions and hybrid (combined physical and digital) tools? Hybrid Heritage engages with this challenge presenting a series of projects researching and designing contemporary interpretations and further development of heritage from a multicultural perspective. Including the integration of digital technology and media networks in heritage projects, Hybrid Heritage also focuses on cultural hybridity in today’s globalized world.
Publication Hybrid Heritage @ Identity and Heritage, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Stuttgart, Germany, 1 Februari 2022
Keynote Hybrid Space @ Culture at the digital cultural innovation program dive in , Bundeskulturstiftung, Germany, 22 September 2021
Keynote Hybrid Space @ Bundeskulturstiftung, dive in “new forms of artistic production”, Halle an der Saale, Germany, 22 September 2021
Hybrid Space Lab is invited to develop ideas for artistic intervention possibilities at the Bismarck Monument in the Alter Elbpark in Hamburg and to suggest ways in which the monument could be set in a new context.
Lecture & Panel Discussion @ Re-Contextualizing the Hamburg Bismarck Monument, Ministry of Culture and Media Hamburg, Germany, 16 September 2021
Our whole sense of reality is shaped by our hybrid existence. Hybridity is a multifaceted notion, as we are experiencing a proliferation of hybridization in all dimensions of our contemporary life. This is discussed in an article on Hybrid Space, published by the Lithuanian Union of Architects.
Publication Hybrid Spaces @ Regeneration [and its Discontents], Lithuanian Architectural Foundation, Vilnius, Lithuania, 4 June 2021
We need a fresh, radically innovative and solutions-oriented approach to address the various forms of contested heritage sites in a way that is fit for the 21st century.
Article on Hybrid Space Lab’s work on contested monuments, is published in Italy.
Publication Re-Charting Places @ Contested Spaces – Concerted Projects: Designs for Vulnerable Memories, LetteraVentidue Edizioni, Syracuse, Italy, April 2021
Hjärnstorm, the Swedish independent journal of art, literature, philosophy published an article on Deep Space.
Publication Valle de los Caídos: the Digital Architecture Embraces a Painful Heritage, Cecilia Nyman @ Hjärnstorm Stockholm, 5 January 2021
Hybrid Space Lab analyzed “Valley of the Fallen” near Madrid – the pompous tomb for the fascist dictator Francisco Franco. They suggest leaving it unchanged but covering it with a new critical layer. Using augmented reality, they want to make hidden layers visible and write history from the victims’ perspective.
Publication Informing instead of glorifying, Jørg Himmelreich, @ archithese, Switserland, 28 November 2020
Hybrid Space Lab contributes to the international conference “Practices of Inheritance – Metaphors, Materializations, Power Constellations” of the “IDENTITY AND HERITAGE” research cluster of the Bauhaus University Weimar and Technical University Berlin.
Lecture Hybrid Heritage @ Bauhaus University Weimar & Technical University Berlin, Conference Practices of Inheritance, Metaphors, Materializations, Power Constellations, Tempelhof Airport, Berlin, 19 November 2020
The Paris exhibition “Negotiating Borders – Real DMZ Project” features Hybrid Space Lab’s DMZpace, a project deploying the potential of the border area as a site of both historical wounds and flourishing nature.
Exhibition DMZpace @ Korean Cultural Center, Paris, 10 September-6 November 2020
Hybrid Space Lab contributes to the International Master Class Artistic Research, pioneering developments of immersive 360° concepts and narratives.
Lecture Hybrid Heritage @ Film University Babelsberg, Master Class Artistic Research, Potsdam, Germany, 7-18 September 2020
The Valle de los Caídos is highly controversial as a memorial of the fallen of the Spanish Civil War: for a long time, it mainly served the glorification of the dictator Franco. The “Deep Space” project wants to show visitors also the site’s dark side.
Interview, Eckhard Roelcke, journalist @ Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Germany, 8 August 2020
Berlin’s contribution to the debate on monuments: What to do with Franco’s mausoleum?
Do not destroy it, says the Berlin office Hybrid Space Lab as it lays out ideas for a new way of dealing with the controversial Franco memorial in the “Valley of the Fallen” near Madrid.
Publication, Bernhard Schultz, journalist @ Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin, 16 July 2020
Monuments are Vehicles of Meaning. Elizabeth Sikiaridi and Frans Vogelaar research how to negotiate monuments’ narratives and how to bring criticism.
Interview, Brigitte Werneburg, journalist @ taz, Germany, 14 July 2020
As in the 21st Century the world develops a deeper understanding of heritage, digital technology is ever more present in our reading of the past. Hybrid Space Lab’s lecture Hybrid Heritage addresses how to best unlock the unique potentialities of this interdisciplinary and technological moment.
Lecture Hybrid Heritage @ AMPS [Architecture, Media, Politics, Society] Conference, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK, 29-30 June 2020
Professor Sharon Macdonald, Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Social Anthropology at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, refers to our Humboldt Jungle project as an example and an inspiration for the creative appropriation and transformation of the Humboldt Forum.
Article, Professor Sharon Macdonald, Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Social Anthropology @ Humboldt Forum, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institute of European Ethnology, Berlin, 15 June 2020
The Valley of the Fallen without Franco: the fate of the other 33,847 dead”
This is the title of the article by journalist Sílvia Marimom Molas in the Catalan Newspaper ARA on the future of the Valle de los Caídos with an interview on Deep Space.
Article The Valley of the Fallen without Franco: the fate of the other 33,847 dead, Sílvia Marimom @ Catalan Newspaper ARA, Barcelona, 23 November 2019
In the article “Without Franco, what to do with the colossal Valle de los Caídos?” for HuffPost, Anthony Berthelier describes the project “Deep Space: re-signifying Valle de los Caídos” with its creative approach for addressing controversial history and contested heritage.
Article Without Franco, what to do with the colossal Valle de los Caídos?, Anthony Berthelier @ HuffPost , France, 24 October 2019
The Valley of the Fallen is a large memorial erected near Madrid in the mountain range of the Sierra de Guadarrama on the initiative of the dictator Francisco Franco. It is dedicated to the fallen of the Spanish Civil War. Within the scope of the project “Deep Space” it is proposed to transform the monument by digital means.
Publication From Monument to Memorial@ Magazine for Architecture and City Marlowes, Germany, 16 Juli 2019
Instead of creating a gap in this highly symbolic place, the international think tank Hybrid Space Lab represents the impetus to explore alternative memory narratives to the previously totalitarian narrative of the Valle de los Caídos.
Article Romanistik Blog @ State and University Library Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky, Hamburg, 8 July 2019
On 24 September 2019 Spain’s Supreme Court approved unanimously the exhumation of the former dictator Franco from the underground basilica of Valle de los Caídos mausoleum. Hybrid Space Lab’s project “Deep Space: Re-signifying Valle de los Caídos” investigating what transformations are still needed at the Valle de los Caídos so as not to create a cenotaph – an empty burial monument – is becoming increasingly urgent.
Opening, Exhibition, Lecture, Discussion, Finissage & Public Space Exhibition on Facade: Lost Memory – Recovered Memory @ Goethe Institut, Madrid, 5 June 2019 until Franco’s Exhumation
“What happens when an object loses its original purpose? Why does architecture find itself displaced, unwanted and repurposed?
Buildings and physical infrastructure possess a longue durée that is fundamental to their spatial and political impact.
But their long-term pretension can also become their undoing: politics, society, media and culture change faster than bricks and concrete.
Structures can usually adjust only in very expensive ways: with renovation or destruction.
History leaves behind either heritage or rubble, both a sort of an architectural ‘living dead’.
Lecture @ NONUMENT! Symposium, Prague, 14 June 2019
Article “We come for the place, not for Franco “: El Valle de los Caídos, a tourist site almost like the others” by journalist Juliette Campion, France Televisions.
Publication, Juliette Campion @ France TV Info, Paris, 10 June 2019
Deep Space is an international project to re-think the burial site of former dictator Franco.Deep Space, presented at the Goethe Institut in Madrid, uses augmented reality to change the totalitarian nature of the Spanish Civil War monument the Valley of the Fallen.
Publication, Peio H. Riaño @ El País, Madrid, 6 June 2019
By means of creativity, Hybrid Space Lab’s approach paves the way towards a more integrated, collective processes of memory- and meaning-making.
Bringing creativity into controversial situations informs engagement with contentious landscapes, negotiation stasis, and political reticence.
Publication Creative Crossovers @ Public Diplomacy Magazine, University of Southern California, USC Annenberg, USC Centre on Public Diplomacy, USC Masters of Public Diplomacy Program, USA, 7 June 2019
Public space installation, lecture and panel discussion together with Miquel Gonzalez, Photographer, Emilio Silva, Journalist, Prof. Gutmaro Gomez Bravo and Hybrid Space Lab at the Goethe Institut in Madrid.
Opening, Exhibition, Lecture & Discussion Lost Memory – Recovered Memory, Deep Space @ Goethe Institut, Madrid, 5 June 2019
Working on places of conflict can be extremely challenging.Architecture practice Hybrid Space Lab takes a rather unique approach for the re-signification of the controversial site of Valle de los Caídos in Madrid, the burial ground of Spain’s dictator Francisco Franco and 33,000 victims of the country’s brutal civil war.
Article by Elena Rossoni @ Bnieuws TU Delft, The Netherlands, 5 February 2019
Deep Space: re-signifying Valle de los Caídos is presented on 25 January 2019 at the transmediale in Berlin, Germany.
Lecture & Discussion @ transmediale, Berlin, 3 February 2019
TRACES is a three-year research project investigating the role of contentious heritage in contemporary Europe.
By deploying an innovative research methodology based on an artistic/ethnographic approach, TRACES analyses challenges, opportunities and practices inherent in transmitting difficult pasts and heritages.
Hybrid Space Lab presents Deep Space the a long-term investigative program initiated to deal with politics of memory, controversial monuments and heritage.
Lecture & Discussion @ TRACES, Politecnico di Milano School of Architecture, via Ampère 2, Milan, 25 January 2019
Future is en vogue.
In 2018, she delivered the motto of the science year “Working Worlds of the Future”.
Daily, the media discusses the extent to which robots intervene in our everyday lives and what the progressive digitization is doing to us. And even exhibitions are not excluded from this.
Lecture Future Heritage @ DASA, Dortmund, Germany, 23-24 January 2019
Frans Vogelaar wants to give the Valley of the Fallen in Spain, one of the most controversial places in the world, new meaning. How does the founder of the Berlin design lab and think tank Hybrid Space Lab think to do that with use of digital technology?
Article Deep Space @ Het Financieele Dagblad, the Netherlands, January 2019
The Valley of the Fallen, the shrine of Franco’s dictatorship, is still dividing Spain.
With the words “Die heiße Asche des Diktators”, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) of November 1st 2018, journalist Paul Ingendaay captures the toxicity of the highly divisive Francoist Memorial at Valle de los Caídos, as well as the urgency of Hybrid Space Lab’s workshop Deep Space: Re-signifying Valle de los Caídos.
Article The Hot Ashes of the Dictator, Paul Ingendaay @ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1 November 2018
Catalan journalist Sílvia Marimon Molas describes in her article “The Gaze of European Experts” in the Catalan newspaper ARA on 31st October 2018 the workshop “Deep Space: Re-signifying Valle de los Caídos” participants’ visit to the site and the necessity of a change of the monument’s narrative.
Publication The Gaze of European Experts, Sílvia Marimon @ ARA Catalonia, Spain, 31 October 2018
“Deep Space: re-signifying Valle de los Caídos” is a workshop at the Medialab Prado in Madrid from 25 till 27 October 2018 in Madrid. Hybrid Space Lab is co-organizing an international conference and executing workshops with public interventions and pop-up exhibitions in Berlin at the transmediale and in Rotterdam at the New Institute in 2019.
Workshop”Deep Space: re-signifying Valle de los Caídos”, @ Medialab Prado in Madrid, 25-27 October 2018
Lecture, @ TRACES in Milan, January 2019
Lecture, @ transmediale in Berlin, February 2019
Films, Talks, Discussions, Installation, Event @ Goethe Institut Madrid 6 May 2019
Affect Space refers to self-mediated leisure spaces that act as affective backdrops for digital self-activation.
Hybrid Space Lab presents Deep Space in this context.
Lecture & Discussion Affect Space, Transmediale Festival Face Value, @ Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 4 February 2018