This workshop was a live project, developed in real time in the local urban condition, where we tried to practice means and tools for producing the circumstances of the public space, other than what the administration or private interests are doing. The chosen site was the city’s main square, Piaţa Victoriei, a representational space where the commercial and administrative interests dominate in terms of space, geography and visibility, but where also conflictual situations, public resistance subversive claims or just manifestations of local survival appear, building together a live and authentic public territory, generated by a complex system of relations. The wood workshop took place outside and the intervention area was the square. 5 different typologies of objects were realized, the installations engaging directly in the real space, temporarily modifying the usages and the perceptions of the passer-byes and users. Bench is a multipurpose object that rotates around a tree for the best shadow. Speaker was a series of one-to-one open talks with an architect, a lawyer and an actor, supported by 3 sitting structures, relating to the reticence of the authorities about organizing protests and rallies in this square (although this is the square where the Romanian Revolution in 1989 started). Ironically, one of the passers-bye who participated in the talks was the mayor of the city. Cip Ciop was a metaphorical figure representing the “The Mother of all Pigeons” in the square, that acted as a play and photo figure. Memory in steps is a repair intervention on the existing steps of the opera, a low-cost intervention, mirroring the controversial project that completely replaced the steps of the nearby cathedral and that was taking place at the same time, and that critically engaged the lack of public interest about the two situations. Relational objects is a series of urban furniture that deals with rediscovering the familiarity of this representational space, improving unused situations and embracing existing structures, thus becoming support structures for small, almost intimate activities.
