The Bordering Affects workshop invites participants for a reflection on how the frontier is embodied and the affective constellations that it generates. The programme is composed of a series of talks, workshops and excursions aimed at exploring localised attunements, past presences and everyday intensities of Narva. By reflecting on idiosynchratic practices and sensibilities, and their potential of contagion, this international workshop is meant to acquaint us with invisible subjectivities of the place and alleviate negative stereotypes, turning the Estonian society more inclusive and more considerate of differences.
Narva is one of the oldest borders of Europe; however, as a city, it has been under construction for over a century, showing today an active negotiation of belonging and generating distinct attachments in multiple scales and temporalities. In Narva, the river functions as a geopolitical border, but the bordering affect goes beyond the line. Life at the edge produces a particular regime of knowledge and sense of belonging, generating distinct intensities, delineations and cultural practices. And yet, Narva is more than a geopolitical node and a periphery; it is a centre out there, a historical site with heightened symbolic, industrial, military, architectural, environmental and spiritual value. Also a mystery charged with multiple potentials.
Most of the programme is intended for Urban Studies and Interior Architecture/Spatial Design students. Participating students are invited to excavate in their experience and to build knowledge based in their situated affects for producing an empathic outcome of their time in Narva. They will work in groups of five and present in our last day there their works meant to reflect on the distinct intensities and attunements of Narva through the prisms of affect, resonance, contagion and embodied imagination. Accordingly, they are expected to acquaint with the distinct states of mind generated in the Narvian environment.
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EVENT OPEN FOR PUBLIC: Friday, 8th of September
Venue: Narva College
- 16:00 Public discussion with Ivan Sergejev, Aet Kiisla, Lorraine Weekes, Tarmo Pikner, and the Palestinians professors Shaden S. Awad, Dima Yaser and Yasid Elrifai, moderated by FM. Narva College, room no 100
Being in-between times and spaces: the public discussion sets up to engage with how borders destabilise any easy distinction between ‘local’ and ‘global’ and the way they generate concrete emotional outcomes. We will also discuss the ambivalences of borderlands, the particular quotidian practices, tastes and material culture that appear in situ, its hybrid or plural identity making, and how borderlands might become a centre out there.
Organisers:
Departments of Urban Studies and Interior Architecture/Spatial Design
Francisco Martinez
Keiti Kljavin
Andra Aaloe
Hannes Praks
Alina Nurmist