What could our vacant spaces become if we looked at them through different eyes? In this participatory walk and guerrilla poster-making workshop, architect Tov Frencken invites you to rethink urban vacancy as an opportunity – rather than something inescapable. After discussion on  what you miss in the city, what you’ve had in other cities, and how you hope to see its future, you’ll explore the hidden geography of empty buildings in Rotterdam – taking the Oude Westen neighbourhood as a first case study. 

Finding overlooked plots through open-source vacancy map wastedspaces.org, or by adding your own, participants will imagine alternative uses for such spaces – and collage them into quick posters. Together, participants will create and hang site-specific work that give vacant buildings a temporary voice, inviting passers-by to imagine the future of the city – from space to live and make to dance, play and gather!

No design experience required!

This workshop is a part of Current Traces #3: This Must Be the Place, exhibited at OMI Rotterdam until 25th July. Through the eyes of filmmaker and animator Tess Martin, architect Tov Frencken and artist Nael Quraishi, the exhibition invites you to look again at your surroundings – not as stable ground, but as an assemblage of past lives, memories and future desires.