Urban Alternatives: A Blueprint for Successful Resistance Monday, March 6 | 6:30 - 8:30 PM Institute for Public Knowledge 20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor More info and RSVP: https://ipk.nyu.edu/blog/events/discussion-helsinki-effect/ Helsinki was the chosen site for the Guggenheim Museum’s latest effort to replicate the much-contested “Bilbao Effect.” But in 2015, advocates of better methods for fusing the arts and urbanism had a different idea. They launched an alternative design competition, The Next Helsinki, which amplified a public debate about the role of culture in economic development that has consequences far beyond the Finnish case-study. The Helsinki Effect (out now from Urban Research) archives the hundreds of entries submitted to the competition and includes essays by leading urbanists, artists, and architects about its significance. It is a blueprint for successful resistance: in 2016, the Guggenheim lost its bid to build the museum. NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge invites you to join us for a discussion with the organizers and editors of The Next Helsinki competition and The Helsinki Effect: Terike Haapoja, Miguel Robles-Durán, Andrew Ross, Michael Sorkin, andSharon Zukin. ________________________________ Terike Haapoja<http://www.terikehaapoja.net/> is a Finnish visual artist based in Berlin and New York. Her work investigates the existential and political boundaries of our world. Haapoja’s recent projects include Closed Circuit— Open Duration (2008/2013), last seen in the 55th Venice Biennale. She also represented Finland in the Venice Biennale in 2013 with a solo show in the Nordic Pavilion. Her work has been awarded the Dukaatti Prize (2008), Säde prize (2009), and Finland’s Festival’s artist of the year—honorary mention (2007). Haapoja was nominated for Ars Fennica (2011). Haapoja is a member of the Finnish Bioart Society, and founded the Ecology, Ethics, and Art program at the Academy of Fine Arts in Finland. Miguel Robles-Durán<http://www.newschool.edu/parsons/faculty.aspx?id=4e44-4d31-4e6a-6332> is Director of the Program in Urban Ecologies at The New School in New York, Senior fellow at ‘Civic City’, a post-graduate design/research program based at the Haute École d’Art et de Design (HEAD) Geneva, Switzerland, and co-founder of ‘Cohabitation Strategies’, an international non-profit cooperative for socio-spatial development based in New York and Rotterdam. He is co-director of the National Strategy Center for the Right to the Territory (CENEDET) of the Republic of Ecuador, and has extensive international experience in the coordination of trans-disciplinary urban projects, tactical design strategies and civic engagement platforms. Andrew Ross<http://sca.as.nyu.edu/object/andrewross.html> is a Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at NYU. A contributor to The Guardian, The New York Times, The Nation, and Al Jazeera, he is the author of many books, including Bird On Fire: Lessons from the World’s Least Sustainable City, and The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Property Value in Disney’s New Town. He is a founding member of the Gulf Labor Coalition, an international group of artists, curators, and writers focused on improving labor conditions at the Guggenheim’s Abu Dhabi museum. Michael Sorkin<https://www.sorkinstudio.com/> is Principal of the Michael Sorkin Studio. Sorkin is also founding President of Terreform, a nonprofit organization dedicated to research and intervention in issues of urban morphology, sustainability, equity, and community planning. Sorkin is Distinguished Professor of Architecture and the Director of the Graduate Program in Urban Design at The City College of New York. He is also an architecture critic for The Nation, contributing editor atArchitectural Record, and is writer or editor of over twenty books includingVariation on a Theme Park, Exquisite Corpse, Giving Ground (edited with Joan Copjec), All Over the Map, and Twenty Minutes in Manhattan. Sharon Zukin<http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/web/academics/faculty/faculty_profile.jsp?faculty=420>, Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, writes about cities, culture, and economic change. She is the author of Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places, which won the Jane Jacobs Award for Urban Communication;Landscapes of Power: From Detroit to Disney World, which won the C. Wright Mills Award; and Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change. She is working on a new project on New York’s creative ecosystem on an ARC fellowship at the CUNY Graduate Center. ________________________________ The Next Helsinki<http://nexthelsinki.org/> and The Helsinki Effect<http://www.urpub.org/books/thehelsinkieffect> was organized by: * Checkpoint Helsinki<http://checkpointhelsinki.org/>, a contemporary art organization established in 2013. Working in collaboration with international and local groups, it commissions the contemporary art of the future, inviting artist and curators from around the world to work in Finland. * G.U.L.F. (Global Ultra Luxury Faction)<http://gulflabor.org/>, a direct-action offshoot of the Gulf Labor Coalition of international artists working to ensure that migrant worker rights are protected during the construction of museums on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi. * Terreform<http://terreform.info/>, a nonprofit urban research and designer center based in New York operates as a “friend of the court,” authoring alternatives that seek to raise expectations, enhance debate, and challenge conventional wisdom.