It's through constant wandering, exploration, and testing that children experience their being in the world. Their bodies are in a perpetual state of alert, through the electric antennas of their senses. It's by exploring their surrounding space that they become aware of themselves, others, and the complexities of their environment. The short films gathered in this program offer magnificent and subtle observations of how children engage their bodies in space as sensorial exploratory tools.
The screening will be accompanied by a conversation led by Bêka & Lemoine with Anna Heringer, architect of several outstanding projects dedicated to childhood and education, such as the METI school in Bangladesh (Aga Khan Award for Architecture).
After the movie, Goethe Institut Denmark extends an invitation for a glass of wine. The event is made possible thanks to the generous support from the Obel Award and Institut Francais.
About 'Spatial disobedience. Children in space'
Curated by artists-filmmakers Bêka & Lemoine, in close line with their long term research on the sensorial and emotional impact of space, Spatial disobedience. Children in space is a program of films and talks plugged into the unconditional energy and curiosity with which children explore space. Children are undoubtedly the forgotten ones of our cities. For them, everything is dangerous, distressful or forbidden since everything is designed by and for adults. Too small to open a door, to ring an intercom, to stop the traffic to cross the street, children are constantly adapting to an oversized world. They undergo constant limitation and regulation of their behavior, their movements and bodies to channel their bursting energy into safe and socially accepted manners. And yet it is through physical exploration of their surrounding space that children learn who they are and what kind of world they live in. Through a selection of short filmic gems, adopting the scale and perspective of children, this program is dedicated to the explorative and inventive force of childhood. The accompanying conversations will be the occasion to question what our cities would look like if we would listen to children a little more.
About Anna Heringer
For Anna Heringer architecture is a tool to improve lives. As an architect and honorary professor of the UNESCO Chair of Earthen Architecture, Building Cultures, and Sustainable Development she is focusing on the use of natural building materials. She received numerous honors: the Obel Award 2020, the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture, the AR Emerging Architecture Awards in 2006 and 2008, the Loeb Fellowship at Harvard's GSD and a RIBA International Fellowship. Her work was widely published and exhibited in the MoMA New York, the V&A Museum in London and at the Venice Biennale among other places.
About Bêka & Lemoine
Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine are visual artists who work in a variety of media, such as film, video installation, photography and books. They experiment with new narrative and cinematic forms to explore how people experience, perceive, and relate to space from an emotional, social, and cultural standpoint. Their films are widely shown at renowned museums and cultural institutions, as well as various biennials and international film festivals. Presented by The New York Times as the "cult figures in the European architecture world", Bêka & Lemoine's work has been widely acclaimed as "a new form of criticism" which "has deeply changed the way of looking at architecture".
Film program
Nest, Hlynur Palmason, 2022, 22'Children games, Francis Alÿs, 1999-now, 15'
Children games, Francis Alÿs, 1999-now, 15'
Blind Kind, Van der Keuken, 1964, 25'
About CAFx MICRO-FESTIVAL (Vol. 1)
With 9 events spread over 4 days, CAFx - Copenhagen Architecture Festival explores new architectural perspectives through premiere screenings and unique film and lecture programs. We investigate what we can learn from children about urban spaces, what fair urban planning looks like across cultural, geographical and species boundaries, and what we can do to embed architecture in nature's infinite material cycles. Read more here.