Guest lecture: 'Renewing Knowledge Production at Floating University Berlin and Haus der Statistik' by Marjetica Potrč

The last guest lecture in A Re-Place cycle before the hands-on weekly workshop on-site was a lecture held by an acknowledged Slovene artist and architect Marjetica Potrč. Her interdisciplinary practice includes on-site projects, research, architectural case studies, and a series of drawings. Her work documents and interprets contemporary architectural practice, participatory design and sustainable solutions (in particular, with regard to energy infrastructure and water use), and the ways people live together. the lecture and discussion were of hybrid type (lice plus Zoom); more than 60 people attended.

Marjetica has received numerous grants and awards, including two grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (1993 and 1999); the Hugo Boss Prize in 2000, administered by the Guggenheim Museum (2000); and the Vera List Center for Arts and Politics Fellowship at The New School in New York (2007); the Curry Stone Design Prize (2008); and a residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2018).

From 2011 to 2018, she was a professor of social practice at the University of Fine Arts/HFBK in Hamburg, where she taught Design for the Living World, a class on participatory practices. She has also been a visiting professor at a number of other institutions, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2005) and the IUAV Faculty of Arts and Design in Venice (2008, 2010).

The lecture was followed by a lively discussion among all participating students, participating interested public and mentors, debating the benefits and necessity of recycling and reuse in design and the value of natural resources.