“Me muevo entre los centros y las periferias; soy a la vez periférico y central, pero con un claro partidismo por la periferia”.
Henri Lefebvre (Tiempos Equívocos)

Re>Centering Periphery. The processual articulation of this locution thus alludes to the act of moving away from your own centre, distracting your attention and contaminating your subjectivity. Recentering in psychology refers to taking a new penetrating perspective, in taking a new angle or outlook from which the creative solution is reached. Periphery. An amorphous, ineffable object(ive) impossible by default to reach. Like the margins of a visual field that remain a sensation outside the frame of vision, or some forever fleeting and unreachable horizon, the periphery is the place that escapes any absolute localization. It makes sense only in relative terms when compared to what one takes as a centre. Even when we reach the most peripheral location imaginable, we find ourselves re-centred in a new system of coordinates ordering a new topological configuration. The quest for the periphery is a philosophical challenge, a vortex, a hypnotic derive.

Re>centering Periphery is a multi-format research project, conceived, designed and directed by ogino:knauss and produced by Tesserae .

Project design, film direction and script: Lorenzo Tripodi
Art direction, photography and film editing: Manuela Conti
Scientific coordination: Laura Colini
Sound design: Francesca Mizzoni, Michele Lancuba
Multimedia design, web and software development: Sergio Segoloni

The project develops three main objectives:

  • To investigate the contribution of the modernist ideology to the development of global urbanisation and its historical role in determining centre-periphery relations, marginalisation and displacement.
  • To identify and resonate creative local practices resisting, redefining or reinventing the harsh environment of modern suburbia.
  • To develop innovative methodologies of investigation and representation for the contemporary urban landscape.

The overall aim of the project is to retrace an alternative history of the modernist ideology, trying to confront its theoretical discourse with the actual consequences on people’s life. We look for emblematic outcomes of the architectural ideology, filming how these projects look nowadays and how they are actually experienced by their inhabitants. We aim to  investigate effective models and tragic failures in designing the modern city, including the dystopical French banlieus, the shrinking cities of former eastern Germany, the colonial rationalisations of african habitats, the declining industrial North American city or the unceasingly growing metropolitan areas of Asia. Such physical environments will be challenged through the confrontation with everyday life practices and cultural currents crossing, inhabiting and transforming the urban space, enriching the historical perspective on the modern movement with a specific sensibility to micro-stories and local tactics.