Non-site welfare landscapes on-site: curated displays of transformed social housing estates

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Exhibitions are anything but a neutral; they may affect the ‘reality’ they mirror. As such the exhibition is an ongoing, open product of research that is always researching research itself, but that is also affected by and affecting politicised agendas. This article focus on the large open spaces—the welfare landscapes—of the Danish 1970s social housing estate, Gellerup and Toveshøj, currently subject to ‘radical’ transformation and displayed in its most crucial location, i.e. the site itself. I reflect on the culture of display when an exhibition is interacting with what it displays providing a theoretical framework drawing on concepts such as Smithson’s site/non-site, the Gesamtkunstwerk—played out in a neoliberal context—and international fairs like the IBA. Moreover, the built and displayed transformations spur reflections on the sliding changes of the welfare concept itself and how that is mirrored in the conducts and ethics of display.

Original languageEnglish
JournalLandscape Research
Volume46
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)542-557
Number of pages16
ISSN0142-6397
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Landscape Research Group Ltd.

    Research areas

  • apparatus of security, Landscape architecture exhibition, social housing estate, urban transformation, welfare landscape and welfare ideals

ID: 269598443