Architectural Acts of Care

upcoming in October 2024, New York

June 3–11th 2024, London

April 2024, Helsinki

During 2024 Vapaa Collective is taking a closer look at the theme of care. Throughout the year, the collective will approach the theme from different perspectives in three different locations - Helsinki, London and New York – through a series of architectural performances. The work frames the acts of care as a part of architecture equal to physical pieces and designs, bringing them out from behind the scenes, and presenting them as elemental to understanding architecture and design.

The theme of care has been present in arts for some time, but what it means in the context of architecture is still less obvious. According to modernist principles largely still prevalent in our society, architecture is thought to be created in isolation on the Architect's drawing board, and its processes understood to end with the completion of the building. Participating in architecture is thought to be purely in the hands of professionals. This understanding includes the idea of “maintenance-free”, which continues to dominate our environmental sensitivity, and leads us to consider buildings as static objects whose maintenance, care, is merely a nuisance. Just as the care of children, seniors and others carried out at homes (by women) is not seen as productive 'work', similarly the processes sustaining our built environment are not seen as an intrinsic part of architecture. Framed as feminine and stagnant, care has been displaced from its place as a life-sustaining force and pushed to the margins, out of sight.

However, the environmental crises of our time demand the acknowledgement of the finite nature of Earth’s resources. Thus also the focus of architecture and design will shift away from the finalized-in-one-go, disposable piece and emphasise their role as a dynamic 'act', a nurturing of pre-existing works. Alongside the traditional terms of repair and maintenance, the introduction of the term 'care' emphasises the repetitive and continuous nature of these processes. It highlights the emotional bond related to the act, and the meaning of the act to its actor. Care is not just an abstract work to be commissioned, but the carer’s personal relation to the act itself.

As we begin to define architecture more comprehensively as an act of care, it expands from design to the ‘art of dwelling’, where the dweller becomes part of the continuum of the building, of the architectural process. It is closing the windows on a rainy day, sweeping the grains of gravel from hallways. It's wearing woolen socks on a chilly night, before the thermostat catches up. Dwelling isn’t confined only to buildings, but also to the built environment being formed around them. Thus, every person living in a man-made environment inhabits buildings and the built environment, and thus participates in the processes of architecture in their daily lives, being part of the continuous force sustaining it. Architecture as an act of care is a collective act.

The performances will form a series of unique recordings including video, photography and other recordings, coming together as a whole.

The venue for the final exhibition TBA.

Helsinki London New York

In the era of environmental crisis, Vapaa Collective envisions a world that is fundamentally transformed but worth pursuing.

Vapaa is a creative collective that discusses the holistic societal disruption necessitated by the environmental crisis. Its focus is on human environments and the construction industry. The collective combines theoretical and design work into artistic practice to envision new kinds of regenerative environments.

Vapaa Collective was founded in 2019 by architects Iines Karkulahti, Charlotte Nyholm and Meri Wiikinkoski, who design, write, lecture, curate and facilitate workshops on urban transformations.