Pictures by Nick Harrison

As with the development of the city itself, the installation addresses the transformation of the materials, as well as of the overall system, by addition and overwriting, leading to deliberate contextual displacement.

The installation will be progressed in three stages (17-19 February, 26-28 February, 25-28 March) and visitors are encouraged to become part of the development process by bringing their own collected materials from the built environment into the gallery.

Parts of the gallery space will be turned into a material store which not only acts as a collection point for the different ingredients of the installation, but also links back to the former function of the building as a warehouse.

As within the contemporary pluralistic city existing relationships will be shifted through continuous surprising and unexpected interrelations of the individual elements, and new ones will be uncovered, working to no preconceived formula.

 “Merz is sensing without knowing”, Kurt Schwitters, 1920.
 

OSA/Merzen at CUBE 10 March, 2011
By Richard Waite

Architects OSA pay tribute to post-war artist and scavenger Kurt Schwitters by creating a living, evolving collage, writes Richard Waite OSA/Merzen is showing at the Centre for the Urban Built Environment (CUBE), Manchester, from 18 February to 16 April Collage pioneer Kurt Schwitters was a Womble. Just like the creatures of Wimbledon Common, the German artist fetishistically collected cast-offs and detritus that he would later re-use and turn into art; a process he called Merz. Between 1923 and 1937, Schwitters created his masterpiece - a many-layered, avant-garde fantasy world, built from junk (and occasionally personal gifts) inside a family home in Hanover.

Read the full article at www.architectsjournal.co.uk
 

Office for Subversive Architecture (osa) links

Shots of the evolving work on Flickr