Jakob Kolding

b. 1971, Denmark

Most of my work deals with different aspects of space and place, especially urban and suburban contexts. How are different places described and understood? How can you get some kind of understanding of a place if you do not see it in the context of interrelations and as a continuing process as opposed to a static form? What constitutes the identity of a place, not only in the most obvious sense of architecture and inhabitants, but including broader aspects of economy, politics, ideologies etc?

Also, ideas of the perfect city and the consequences of such hopes are an important part of the work. What defines the perfect city? Who is part of it? Who is not? What are the actual consequences in planning and architecture? How are the inhabitants dealing with it? How are housing areas seen by the inhabitants themselves?

Architecture and planning, football, social studies, Gotham city (Batman), politics, the Death Star (Star Wars), economy, skateboarding, art, video games, music, etc, are just some of the things that you might consider part of a geographic milieu. The urban fabric is not something that exists independently of behaviour, of contemporary and historical context, whether at the level of urban planning, youth culture, group identities or art.

(Text: reading the city catalogue, 2009)