Paul Bennun stays indoors for a week

Paul Bennun is locked up in his flat until the 19th of June and is disallowed any kind of contact that does not come over his internet connection. This is for a BBC Radio 3 programme about virtual communities and how relationships therein differ from physical ones -- a programme to be broadcast in November. During the week he is interviewing many of the most important thinkers in the field, as well as (most likely) going gradually nuts.

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MARJETICA POTRC - Forest Rising - Barbican

The Curve
Marjetica Potrc - Forest Rising
24 May - 2 September 2007

Acclaimed Slovenian architect/artist, Marjetica Potrc, is renowned for installations that present socially driven architectural projects in a gallery context. Working at the interface of architecture, art and social science, Potrc is concerned with the fundamentals of human life; our need for shelter, well-being and community.

In this, her first solo exhibition in the UK, Potrc has created a dramatic new work for The Curve. A powerful evocation of Amazonian life in the twenty-first century, Forest Rising, is an ‘island community’ floated on some 40 trees, including a field, pier, helicopter platform and a school, complete with solar panelling and satellite dish .



In focusing on a commendable local response to de-forestation and rising water levels, Potrc’s commission inevitably points to the dangers of globalization, climate change and unsustainable urban growth. However, firmly imbued with an aesthetic of hope, Forest Rising shows how rural living can offer a model for the future; a vibrant community that is both self-supporting and globally connected.




Most positively of all, Potrc finds a commonality between the utopianism of the Barbican, with its high-walks and monolithic raised dwellings, and the inspired strategies of a community on the other side of the world.

Marjetica Potrc is currently based in Stockholm and Ljubljana. Her work has been exhibited widely in the Americas and Europe.