The editors of OPEN invited Jeanne van Heeswijk and architect Dennis Kaspori to guest edit a supplement for the journal ‘OPEN’, published by the Dutch Foundation for Public Art. This issue of OPEN (#12) raises questions regarding the privatisation of intellectual property and presents several alternative approaches to urban design that aim to restore communal dimensions in public space. The guest editorial contribution made by Jeanne and Dennis titled 'Guest≠Welcome' (Gast≠Vrij in Dutch) charts various initiatives around the issues of hospitality and the growing control and limitation of individual expression in public domains.
Guest≠Welcome assembles several written pieces by artists and cultural practictioners that reflect on the problematic and increasingly restricted boundaries of the public domain in contemporary society: a cross section of artistic/architectural texts and case studies spark new thinkings and offer clandestine creative forms and possibilities for real participation, participation that challenges regulated divisions between public and private.
Their editorial contribution also serves as the point of departure for‘Hospitality for what is to come’, which is a two-year project that Jeanne van Heeswijk and Dennis Kaspori are realising in cooperation with AlmostReal and the Blue House in Amsterdam. The project will consist of a number of interconnected guesthouses, meeting places and clandestine routes that serve as a platform for contributing to the debate about hospitality and migration. Check here for an online overview of the edition of OPEN 12 Freedom of culture.